The Girl In the Straw Hat
by Pocketbook
Summary: Ash meets a girl in a straw hat. He meets her again years later. The development of his affections for her is slow, but the feelings grow even despite his reluctance to have them. Amourshipping. AshxSerena.
1. Chapter 1

**The Girl in the Straw Hat**

The girl in the straw hat was scared when I first met her. She was shaking on the floor, sitting up against a young oak past the bushes where I'd been exploring. He knee was bleeding.

I couldn't see her face. It was buried inside her small hands. Tears leaked from her fingers and fell on to her dress, stained with mud and grass. The sun gave off a warm light, illuminating the gold in her hair, and I probably watched her longer than I should have. I was only seven at the time—and I hadn't seen too many girls up close—so I was pretty captivated, especially since she was crying. I'd seen my mom cry plenty after Dad left, and even then I hated watching her hurt. I would start crying too. There was something pretty heartbreaking about a girl's tears. The girl in the straw hat was no exception. I wanted to make her pain go away.

I tried not to make too much noise. I didn't want to scare her even more. I managed to climb through the bushes and make it to the other side, but her head had shot up at the sound of the leaves rustling during my struggle. I was a small kid.

"Hey," I said, giving her a smile, "are you alright?"

She looked at me with tears still running down her cheeks. I had to pause for a moment because the red in her eyes made them look as blue as the dragon scales washing up on the sand near my house. She was really pretty.

"Hi, I'm Ash," I declared, probably trying to look all confident and macho, but inside I could feel my stomach flying, "Who are you? What's wrong?"

"I…," she looked down at her leg, her cheeks turning a dark shade of pink, "I hurt my leg."

I knelt down in front of her and pulled out a handkerchief that used to be my dad's. I tied it around her knew without a second thought, saying, "Here. This will make it better."

She winced as I pulled the knot tight.

"It still hurts,"

I stood up and smiled. I offered her my hand.

"Don't give up 'til it's over, okay?"

She still seemed scared. Probably for a reason. I could be a scary kid.

Either way, I took hold of her and pulled her up a little too hard. She fell in to my chest and I could feel my face burning. Her cheek was up against mine. Her gold hair spilled on to my face. It smelled like the red roses Mom grows in the garden.

She pulled away, her bright eyes wide. I offered her a nervous grin, "There ya go! C'mon, we should be heading back."

I didn't let go of her hand. My heart thundered in my ears. I hadn't ever held the hand of a girl—one who wasn't my mom, I mean. This girl's hand was like the softest thing I'd ever touched. I didn't want to let it go. It made me feel like a king.

That king was holding hands with the prettiest girl in the world.

* * *

To me, love was this thing that hurt people.

Even when I got older, Mom wouldn't stop crying. I got mad about it and asked her why she was always in so much pain.

She said it was because of my dad. She said that it was because she still loved him.

I asked her if Dad still loved her. She said that she didn't know. She said that he did a long time ago, and that his love moved her to love him back. She chose him, because he chose her. And one day he decided to choose something else instead.

She said love hurts when you have it and it hurts when you don't have it; it just hurts you all the time.

And she kept crying.

She chose love. I decided I wouldn't.

* * *

I really should've recognized her.

Serena had the same eyes, the same hair—everything.

I don't know. I guess after building up this emotional density for so long, I didn't _want_ to believe that she had been the girl in the straw hat—the girl that had held my hand.

I stared at her as she held out my handkerchief. She was blushing, that same color the day I met her, and the memory came back to me in detail vivid enough for me smell the roses in her hair; to feel my heart throbbing in my hands. I tried to stop it. I tried to get out of that world, the one where feelings used to get in the way of everything. I couldn't.

"The girl in the straw hat," I said and smiled, as if I'd been freed from something.

"That's right!" Serena exclaimed, her face lighting up like a dazzling fire against the twilight, and her eyes were the blue flames in the heart of the embers.

"I remember you." I felt the handkerchief between my fingers, and found myself wishing that it was her hand. Her hand would have been softer to touch.

She smiled again, but then turned to walk away.

My stomach dropped to my feet and I almost grabbed her wrist. I felt the sweat pool at the back of my neck even though a shiver went up through my teeth. I asked her to wait.

Serena stopped. She turned around.

"Would you," I scratched the back of my head, grimacing like a fool, "I mean, would you like to travel with us?"

Her eyes widened, twinkling in their spheres. I wondered what her eyes would look like in the sky. It was the strangest thought…but I wondered if they'd be as bright as a star up there in space. I figured they'd be brighter, but I tried to stop thinking about it. I didn't like thinking about stars. They were too far away.

* * *

The snowball came hard and fast and knocked me to the floor.

I looked up at the sky, blinking. Ice began to melt in to my hair, freezing over the skin on the back of my neck. Everything that felt numb in me began to thaw. A small flicker of rage ignited some fuse within me, and I could feel the flame work up my spine. It followed the line to my head and I exploded.

I yelled at nothing in particular. I yelled at the sky. It was grey and looked opaque and oppressive, and I couldn't see anything beyond it. It was like I was trapped, and just now realizing it.

Thanks to Serena.

I sat up in the snow with a grunt. I took off my hat and shook the snow from my hair. A part of me began to panic, as I looked around the forest and saw that she had left. Her footprint still fresh on the floor. A wall, which I had spent months building around her, was breaking before my eyes and I scrambled to rebuild the pieces but the wind blew them away from my fingers.

"No, no, no, no, no," I muttered, grabbing at my hair.

 _You'll never understand…leave me alone…_

What had I done? How had I let her in without _trying_ to let her in? Why had she followed me anyway? What was she expecting?

 _The Ash I know never gives up to 'til the end…that's the Ash I…I…_

I didn't want to think about it. I wanted to forget about it, just as I'd forgotten about everything else. I didn't want to believe she cared about me. It would get in the way—I'd lose my focus. I'd—I'd just hurt her. I didn't want to hurt her.

But in a way I just had.

The thought made jump up from the floor. I had hurt her! Just now, I had hurt her by giving up!

I smiled. I smiled so wide, it hurt my frozen cheeks.

I couldn't give up. For her, I could do anything; except give up.

* * *

I was watching the rain pour down hard on roofs of the city houses from the balcony of our room. The thundering on the tin proved to be louder than the distant bellowing of the storm, but it was still calming. While the rest of the world slept, I measured the lightning on a scale of one to ten, based off the brightness of the flashes against the night.

"Ash?" I heard Serena whisper from the dark behind me, and I listened to her step forward, closing the door to the room where Bonnie and Clemont still slept. "How are you?"

She sat next to me and gave me her encouraging smile.

I could feel my heart begin to race, but kept my eyes determined and confident up ahead. I offered her a reassuring, crooked smile.

"I'm nervous," I admitted and was surprised that I had, but it felt natural to be honest with her now; "It's been a while since I've made the finals of any league."

Serena listened. She began watching the rain too, and a comforting silence settled over us. She didn't offer any promises about the future. She didn't say I'd win, or that I shouldn't nervous, or that I'd be okay. Instead, she felt my worry with me. We sat quietly together, in the nervousness that we now shared, so that I wouldn't have to feel nervous alone.

"Ash?"

I looked at her.

Serena blushed. "I—there's something I want—you know, to tell you," She began scrambling for words, laughing uneasily, and her fingers intertwined themselves together.

I looked away. I prayed for the darkness to hide the heat on my face. My breath staggered at the though of what she might say. I dreaded and craved the words. I didn't want to think about how I would respond; I didn't want to think she'd actually give me what I needed to move forward with my affections for her.

I began to panic.

It was too late. The league was almost over. I would be halfway across the ocean come next week, and I didn't know if I wanted her to come with me. I didn't know if she'd want to come with me. I don't want to get in the way of her dreams.

"It's late,"

Serena stopped. She looked at me shocked, as if I had just slapped her. "What?"

"It's getting late," I said again, my voice barely above a whisper. A sharp pain stabbed my chest. "I should go to bed,"

Serena began to trembled. I told myself it was because of the cold. I wanted to reach out and bring her in to me, but convinced myself that I would just hurt her if I did that. I would just hurt her anyway.

She got up and turned away from me. She wiped her eyes.

I pretended not to notice.

She left.

The rain drowned out the words that went unspoken.

* * *

The day we said goodbye, I couldn't even look at her really. Every time I did, I just thought about what she might have said that night—what I didn't let her say—and I could still see the rain in her eyes.

Bonnie and Clemont had just left on a plane back to Lumoise. Serena and I waiting in the hanger for our flights to arrive, and it was quite between us. We listened to footprints echo against the tiles as people traveled to their gates; to kids crying for samples from the man selling pokepuffs at a kiosk. We listened to pokemon and trainers interact with one another as they waited to board; to the laughter born from shared stories. We listened to anything but each other.

I was heading back to Pallet Town to regroup. I felt a little lost after losing to Alain in the finals. I needed to head back home to where things made sense. My emotions were beginning to feel a bit too raw and I didn't like that; and I didn't like the way Serena could tell.

"How long will you be in Kanto?" Serena asked, looking down, playing with the edges of her ticket.

I watched Pancham and Pikachu explore the hanger, making friends with some kids across the way. I shrugged.

"What do you think you'll do next?"

Again, I didn't know what to say. I didn't really know what my next move was, but I figured there'd be other regions to revisit and explore and I told her that.

"That sounds like the Ash I know," she said, a sigh on her chest, "never give up 'til it's over."

I looked at her, but couldn't see her eyes hidden under the shadow of her hat. I buried my face in my hands and groaned, wondering what the heck was wrong with me.

After another minute or so, we heard the boarding call for the Vaniville flight over the intercom, echoing throughout the hanger like a funeral bell.

Serena stood up and called out to Pancham. Pikachu came running too, jumping in to her arms to say goodbye. I felt an odd wave of jealousy surge over me. She hugged him tightly and kissed him on the forehead.

"Pika?" Pikachu muttered, placing a small paw on her cheek where a tear had trickled down her ivory skin.

"Oh, it's nothing," Serena smiled, wiping it away, "I'm just going to miss you is all. Both of you."

She looked at me and I stood up to say goodbye. I rubbed my nose and began to panic. I tried to speak but couldn't, because I didn't trust myself not to ask her to come with me. I wanted her too, I realized, I wanted her to come see my hometown. I wanted to show her Kanto—the steep cliffs of Pewter city, the azure waters of Cerulean—but she had to stay.

I couldn't ask her to go with me. I was scared. I was scared of this girl, of what she might say, of what could do to me…I was more scared than I'd like to admit. I needed to get away from her.

"Ash, are you okay?" she asked, her eyes softening over mine, the way I'd seen them do every time she was worried about me.

For the first time in my life, I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know who to choose.

"Of course," I said and gave her a reassuring grin, but it hurt. I winced at the electrical shock of my dread as it continued to pulse through me.

 _Last call for Vaniville…Last call…_

"I'll see you again," I promised, but realized it was more to reassure myself than it was for her sake. I shook my head at the unbelievable density I could be capable of. "I'll see you again."

Serena placed a hand over her heart and nodded, her lips curving in to a small smile. She turned leave and walked away, Pancham following close behind.

"Pika, pi!" Pikachu cried out in his cheerful way and I just stood there, confused.

I didn't know if I should've shaken her hand or a high-five, I mean, this goodbye felt wrong. It felt all wrong and open-ended, but I just stared after her like kid choking at his first pokemon battle. I threw myself back down on the bench and buried my face in my hands again, groaning.

I stayed like that for a few minutes until I hear footsteps approach.

I looked up.

Serena stared down at me with a strange expression on her face. I jumped up from my bench with a yelp. Before I could ask her what was wrong, she leaned forward, her body falling in to mine the way it did on the day we met; except this time, she kissed me.

The skin under my cheeks burned. My heart hammered in my ears. My eyes, open from shock, didn't register anything but the white light reflecting from the nearness of her skin. They fell shut only after my sense of touch took over, memorizing the feel of her lips, the moisture on her breath, the trembling of her hands; the warmth of her body. That ardor burned through me, seeping in to my blood, warming me from the ground up.

She pulled away.

As quickly as a heat came, it left. Suddenly, it was cold. I was cold.

She searched my eyes. I searched hers.

She turned and left, running.

I just watched her go, my lips still parted by the impression of her kiss. I didn't run after her.

* * *

 _R &R_


	2. Chapter 2

_This is just going to be a short, light collection of amourshipping. Who knows how far I'll go with the relationship, but expect another two chapters at least._

* * *

 ** _The Girl in the Straw Hat_**

 _2 years later…_

Walking down the Vermillion shore, I watched Pikachu run around in the sand with Gary's Umbreon. He asked me to watch his pokemon while he ran downtown to buy our tickets to Hoenn. We had been doing some traveling for the past twenty or so months—sometimes together, sometimes separate— filling out the Pokedex for the professor in each region. So far, we'd only done Kanto and Johto.

It was hard work, but it kept me busy. I needed that. We always had to be on the move. I didn't get a lot of time to think, which I preferred since, I mean, every time I caught a break I'd just think about _her._

I hated thinking about the kiss. I hated thinking about how much I wanted to kiss her again.

"Pika, Pi!" Pikachu began circling around something bright in the sand. He stood up on two feet to wait for me. I caught up with him and crouched down to see what Pikachu had been so captivated by.

There, on the ground, was one of the brightest dragon scales I'd ever seen. It was about the size of my palm and as hard as steel. I marveled at the color. Up close, you could see different variants of blue pixeled together in what seemed like an accidental design, but at a distance the color appeared to be one solid pigment, which changed depending on the light. When I held it towards the sun, the blue materialized in to the hue identical to that of Serena's eyes.

"What do you have there?" Gary asked, coming up from behind me, the tickets in his hand. He snatched the dragon scale from my fingers and began to examine it.

"It's nothing," I snatched it back and tucked it in to the pocket of my jacket.

"Okay then," Gary rolled his eyes and shoved my ticket towards me, "This is your ticket to Kalos,"

I blinked at him. "You mean Hoenn?"

"No, _I'm_ going to Hoenn, _you're_ going to Kalos. Divide and conquer," Gary explained, calling Umbreon towards him.

"Then wouldn't it make more sense for me to go to Sinnoh while you're in Hoenn?"

"Nope," Gary yawned, "you work backwards, I'll work forwards. We'll meet somewhere in the middle and wrap it up."

I took my ticket from him. Sure enough, _Kalos: Coumarine City_ was stamped across the top in black ink right next to my name.

The dragon scale burned within my pocket. I thought about throwing it back in to the ocean.

But I didn't.

 _xxxxx_

"That sounds exciting!" Clemont exclaimed, enthused by the details of my current mission for the professor. I met up with him a little after arriving to Kalos. I had traveled over to Lumoise, where he'd been hanging out as the acting gym leader, and asked him to help me plan my journey in the most effective way possible.

"I was thinking about starting out in the east, up in the mountains and working my way down," I explained, pointing to the Snowbelle area on the map while Clemont followed the tip of my pencil.

He nodded and pushed his glasses farther on to the bridge of his nose, "I mean, you could go either way. I know if you were trying to get through the Pokedex numerically, you're better off staring in Vaniville."

I ignored him. I didn't want to start there.

"Ash!" Bonnie came in to the gym, bouncing in her bubbly way. She looked taller than I remembered, and her hair was cut short under a hat that looked very similar to—"It's so good to see you again!"

She jumped up to give me a small hug. I returned it, grinning down at her. I asked her what she'd been up to, and she filled me in with a few details. She's been hanging around the city, finishing school, but was ready to go out and start her own adventure as a contest performer.

"So you know how Serena's Kalos Queen now, right? You should see her room at the Glorio Palace. It's beautiful. And did you see the dress she wore at the finals?" Bonnie asked, speaking so fast I could barely keep up, "Have you told her you're here?"

"No," I said too quickly. Bonnie and Clemont both looked startled. "I mean, not yet. I-I didn't know she'd become Kalos Queen."

"You mean, she didn't tell you?" Bonnie asked, genuinely surprised, her eyes so full of innocence that it made me envious. To her, the world was still soft colors—half-colored pastels without shade—and it was easy for her to name the things she saw.

I tried to keep my cool, but something about all this was breaking me. I could feel my chest constrict around my heart as though webs were choking the blood from of my veins. I decided to calmly change the subject.

"You okay, man? You look a little pale?" Clemont observed, placing a hand on my shoulder. He looked worried, but didn't press the subject after I shook my head and said I was fine.

Once the conversation moved on, and the two turned back to the map, I felt a sigh of air leave my chest. It was a long, and heavy breath—the kind one lets go just after fear; the one that stands on the edge of anticipation, and regret.

 _xxxxx_

I didn't call Serena. I didn't tell her I was here, in Kalos—how could I? I had walked out of her life and didn't look back. I wondered if she hated me, and I got angry at the thought. It wasn't like she called either. But, maybe, that was still my fault. I wandered around Kalos for about a month, doing my job; trying in some way to make her seem farther away than she was. I don't know why I did that. She was everywhere to me here.

 _xxxxx_

I saw her in Snowbelle, in the middle of winter.

After coming in to the city, as the sun was setting, Pikachu and I had run to the indoor market in the center of town, where most travelers went just to get inside and stay warm. I remember shaking the snow out of my hair and boots. I had grabbed coffee from some vendor close to the door, and hadn't wandered far before a flash of thick, gold hair waved out of the crowd; a ray of sun peeking out from a fog. My eyes immediately sought the source, and they fell upon a slender form; her back to me.

But I had not gazed upon that hair for more than a few seconds to know it was Serena.

Her hair, gold and burnished by the warm indoor light, gilded itself down her shoulders now, falling half-way down her back. She wore tall brown boots and black leggings that disappeared beneath a pink high-waisted skirt; she carried her pink jacket in her arms, which were covered by a loose, black long sleeve button-down, which she had tucked in at her waist. In her dark gold hair, was a black bow, clipped above her ear. I had to catch my breath and wait.

I began to process how different she looked, but also how she looked the same. She was all light before, like fresh fallen snow in the sun, but now she walked with a heaviness, as though footprints had shadowed her white fields, adding a dark complexity to her ivory face—still as soft as the winter light. She had only grown more beautiful, as far as I was concerned. Her eyes still gleamed like crisp ice; frozen orbs of the bluest water.

I couldn't look away.

The next thing I knew, Pikachu was jumping off my shoulder and running full speed towards her direction.

I only watched him, shocked and dazed. My coffee slipped from my hands, and my legs exploded after him.

 _xxxxx_

For a few minutes, I had lost sight of them both in the crowd. I thought about just leaving, and letting Pikachu find his own way to Pallet town. The market was growing more crowded, and I heard someone say something about a blizzard coming in from the mountains. More people were trying to take shelter, I supposed.

I stalked through the thickening throng, and froze when the bodies cleared away for a second, parting like a river, leading me directly to her.

For a moment I just watched her, holding Pikachu in her arms, smiling and laughing with him; as though nothing had changed. She scratched the top of his head, talking to him softly while he relished being cradled and pet in her arms. I felt like two polar ends of the planet, pushing away from each other, arguing over the seasons. I was cold with an irrational jealousy, and at the same time, warmed by a humming sensation buzzing through my blood, melting the snow and the ice still clinging to my skin.

"Ash?"

Her voice snapped me out of some trance. My gazed refocused back on to her; Pikachu on her shoulder, smiling at me and twitching his tail.

She looked at me and preformed a perfect smile, so tender on her reddening cheeks. There was a shallowness to the motion though, and it grew my bones so weak and fragile. I knew she could break me with a breath.

"It's been a while," she continued when I didn't respond, taking a step towards me with that heavy hesitation I knew all too well.

I moved forward too. I could feel my mouth working over invisible sounds, trying to articulate a word. In the end, I could only lip the line, "Too long."

There was a long pause, and the murmuring of the crowd settled between us. She looked at me, as one would watch an oncoming storm roll in to the bay, wondering when the rain would fall.

"I—I didn't know—,"

"How are you?"

Our voices met in unison, but in the end I cut her off and winced.

"I'm okay," she said, and looked down at the floor for just a moment before staring back at me with a degree of disbelief; it was so veiled behind her pretense, I wondered if I was imagining things.

"I—That's great," I scratched my nose then buried my hands in my pockets, "I mean—you look great, and—I guess, I—,"

Serena began to blush, and I reacted likewise after realizing how idiotic I sounded. But I was saved by a couple other voices shouting towards us from the crowd.

"Serena! The scarf you wanted last season is on sale! C'mon, we," Shauna stopped when she saw Pikachu on Serena's shoulder. She then turned towards me and gasped, grabbing me by the arms, "Holy Arceus, Ash Ketchum! How? What? When?"

"Just now," Serena stated bluntly, her tone somewhat cold. It made me grimace.

Shauna didn't seem to notice. She jumped up and down and shook me as she squealed. "My haven't you grown tall and handsome," she stated, giving me a wink.

I immediately watched Serena's reaction, but there was hardly a response. Her eyes only withdrew in to themselves, and I didn't know what that meant.

"Hey, babe," Tierno came stalking up next to the girls, placing an arm around Serena. My first reaction was to throw a death glare at him. "Are we ready to leave, or what?"

My blood gasped with relief as I watched Serena throw Tierno's arm away from her. She rolled her eyes as though she was used to it, but gave her friend a delicate smile that killed me. _I_ wanted that smile.

"Whoa!" Tierno whistled when he saw me staring at him. He gave me a huge grin and extended his hand, which I almost didn't take. "How're ya doing there, buddy? Long time no see."

"Yea, Ash, what the heck?" Shauna laughed and punched me in the shoulder. I was sure it'd leave a bruise. "How long have you been in Kalos."

"About a month," I said, and cursed under my breath when it occurred to me that I should've lied. Serena looked as though she'd been slapped in the face. And she looked hurt.

I hated myself just then.

Shauna and Tierno both asked a bunch of questions. They wondered what I'd been up to, where'd I been, how Clemont and Bonnie were. The two listened animatedly as I told them about the professor asking me to fill out the pokedex. I tried to be friendly, but Serena's silent distance was tortuous. I wanted to talk to her. And only her.

"Hey, what are you doing tomorrow?"

"Shauna, no—," Serena broke in, her voice like a feather.

Shauna didn't seem to hear her. "You know, we're here for the Winter Festival," the tan girl beamed, her green eyes bright with excitement, "Serena has to make appearances at these things; you know how it goes. But why don't you tag along with us?"

"That's right," I breathed, adjusting my hat with one hand, and scratching the back of my head, "I heard you're Kalos Queen now. Congratulations, truly."

Serena's eyes shook within their globes; disks of glass below shallow water. "Thanks, Ash. I—That means a lot."

I bit my lip, frustrated.

"Well, what do you say, Ash? You wanna join us?" Shauna bounced, waiting for my answer. Behind her, Tierno looked just as please to have me come along.

"Guys," Serena spoke quietly again, "he's got work to do, he won't want to—,"

"I'd love to come," I said without a second thought, offering them a grin. Pikachu squealed with delight and I looked at Serena. "That is, if it's okay with you all."

Serena stilled for a moment, genuinely surprised. She realized the decision was hers when no one else said a word. She moved her head in to a small nod, and searched me for some sort of answer. But I had already given her one.

* * *

 _so yes, I decided to follow up with my little one shot. hope you guys like it. stay tuned. R &R_


	3. Chapter 3

_**The Girl in the Straw Hat**_

I woke up and watched the frost crystalize then melt away as the dawn broke in to a strong burst of sunlight. The reflection of the auric rays bounced through the icy haze and in to my room as I rushed to get dressed. Outside, the city was covered in fresh snow—a white blanket of pure crystal—but the blizzard had passed and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Down below, some kids were building snowmen or forming angels in the white dust, and I beamed at the excitement I felt because it reminded me of being like them. Except my enthusiasm drew its energy from a different source, and she was the gold to the day evolving under a cloudless sky.

I grabbed my cap, and threw it on to my hair. Pikachu jumped on to my shoulder just before I ran out of the room to meet the others down at the lobby of the pokemon center. I checked the time on my pokegear and knew I was a little late.

Shauna and Tierno found me right away when I got off the elevator. I greeted them and began looking around for Serena.

"She's not here," Shauna said, smiling as she read my mind, "she's in the opening parade, but she'll join us after they've finished the festival commencements."

"Oh," I breathed, catching my breath from the adrenaline, "I mean—yea, I figured."

"You ready to eat some turkey legs, and kettle corn, and deep fried chocolates and," Tierno grabbed my shoulders and began steering me out of the pokemon center doors, continuing his vivid descriptions of food.

I winced at the brightness of the sun, but my eyes quickly adjusted. We walked away from the outskirts of town in to the central square, where the main street was closed off for the parade. The festival was held at the base of the mountain, north of the city where the procession would end, but vendors and street performers were everywhere. The smell of carnival caramels and butter wafted through the pristine air, washing it with a fluttering sweetness that drew everyone out of their houses and on to the streets. I watched, somewhat dazzled by the excitement. Even from the center of town, I could see the festival shoot up from the north in large pink and blue tents between the various rides. I turned to find Shauna and asked her when the parade was supposed to start.

"Any minute now," She grabbed a cotton candy spun with purple and blue sugars from a nearby vendor and offered me some. "Breakfast?"

I shook my head, but Tierno wasted no time in taking up her offer.

Through my gloves, my hands found the iron railings set up on both sides of the main street. I leaned forward, looking south to see if anything was coming.

"So what is this festival for, anyway?" I asked, Pikachu hopping off my shoulder on to Shauna to grab a bite of cotton candy.

Shauna stepped beside me and began leaning on the railing as well. "It's just a traveling festival that goes all around Kalos. It's supposed to get everyone excited for the holidays. The festivities start in November, usually in Lumoise, and they end at Glorio mid December."

"Serena has to travel with it," Tierno added, coming up behind them, "and to make it easier, we tag along."

"Yea," Shauna drawled, the tension on her face conflicted, "she works hard. It gets lonely."

I didn't have to turn around to know those green eyes were drilling in to my skull. Even within the dry cold, my neck broke out in to a sweat while my muscles tensed to reframe from twitching. I already felt guilty. And the situation was already complicated. I didn't need other people sticking their nose in my business with Serena. I clenched the iron railing and waited for the parade to begin.

 _xxxxx_

First, there were trumpets. They blared open the late morning and I jumped from my half-asleep state, turning my head every which way to find the source of the metal sound. A voice came over the speakers set up around the central square, announcing the commencement of the parade. People cheered, and I looked at Pikachu who gave me an exited grin. Leaning over the rails again, I watched as large floats began to ski through the street; entertainers and pokemon juggled, danced, or threw candy and beads to the kids.

As they grew closer, I turned to Shauna to ask her which Serena would be on, but I didn't even get a word out before she pointed to a huge float built to resemble a palace made of frost and snow. The distance of its approach closed in and I squinted up in to the sunlight to get a better look. I was already getting impatient, but let out a sigh of relief to know that she was near the beginning.

When the shadow of the float touched my feet, I looked up again and lost my breath completely.

Not even the stars—the ones that ripped apart the night to give light to the pale faces of wandering men—could compete with the brilliancy of that girl's smile. Her eyes would shame those lifeless lamps if placed up in the heavens along side their cosmic direction. I could do nothing but stare at the brightness of her, who was so much more than the beauty she sighed in to the snow-dipped scene. She was the sun in the summer and the sweetness of spring. And I could do nothing but wonder why I had let her go.

 _xxxxx_

It was hard to stay conscious for the rest of the parade. All I remember was following her float until the very end—bumping in to the crowd, falling over pokemon and street carts—all because I could not take my eyes off her. She waved to the crowd, threw beads and chocolate with Sylveon, and at one point drifted off the float to take pictures with her fans. Her dress, light and slender, found commonality with the glistening ice all around on the trees and windows of the city. Her hair had been curled and pinned up in to a bun of golden glossed ringlets, some falling loosely before the sides of her face.

I stayed behind while she walked and waved. I tried not to lose it when some guys began hollering at her to give them a kiss. In the end, after Serena had moved on, I only made Pikachu give them a _small_ shock.

A few miles and Serena crossed the end of the parade limits; her float taking only about an hour to make it all the way through town. I fell back in to the shadows when some festival directors led her to—what looked like—her personal trailer, set up behind the festivities from where employees came in and out. I didn't move another inch towards her. I couldn't. She probably needed some space anyway, and it would be weird for me to just waltz up to her trailer and—

"Ash," Shauna sighed, an exasperated edge to her generally cheery voice. I didn't even realize she and Tierno had followed me. "Have you heard of this concept called, 'relaxing?' You should try it sometime."

Tierno chuckled from behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders, again to steer me but this time it was away from Serena and towards the entrance of the festival, where a large crowd was beginning to gather as more floats began to arrive at their destination. When we got to the ticket booth, Shauna greeted the man with familiarity and he gave us all wristbands for free.

"He knows we're with Serena," Tierno explained, "everyone who works with the festival knows, actually."

When he said that, it occurred to me that I didn't think of Serena as a celebrity. But she was. More than that, she was a Kalosian icon, and I suddenly felt way in over my head.

I began to panic. What had I gotten myself in to? I shouldn't be here, wasting time at festivals. I needed to be training and catching pokemon and doing my job. I didn't know Serena anymore. And what was I to her? That guy who couldn't win a league or two. That guy who couldn't call or write. That guy who couldn't kiss her back.

I was the shadow to her light. I would never meet what she needed.

Before Tierno could lead me in any further, I slipped back in to the crowd, losing myself in the faces. When I knew I was beyond being found, I walked out of the festival and didn't look back.

 _xxxxx_

Later that evening, I found myself frozen on a bench in the central square. I could hear the festivities going on north of the city—the children screaming from the rides, the music, the dings and buzzes of various games—and imagined Serena holding my hand. I imagined her smiling. I imagined bringing her in to me. I imagined being able to lean in, and return the impression she left on my lips. I imagined being able to make her happy.

I let Pikachu run around in the snow with some kids nearby, and allowed the light snow, now falling over the city, to stick to my jacket and hair and hands. The sun was dimming behind the mountains to the west, and I was growing colder. But I couldn't find the energy to move. Every thing I had was going in to breathing.

"She used to talk about you,"

I kept my head in my hands, hoping that Shauna's voice, was nothing but imagined.

"She used to talk about you all the time," she continued to say, and I felt her sit down next to me on the bench. "She used to talk about you, and then one day, she stopped. She just stopped talking about you."

I sighed, lifting my head slowly from my palms, and turned towards the tan girl with stones in her eyes. I suddenly felt, incredibly tired.

"She stopped talking about you, Ash," Shauna said, her hands buried in to the pockets of her coat as she played with the snow on the ground near her feet, "But now,"

Shauna looked up.

"But now, she's talking about you again. And you don't get to just leave. Not after you've made her talk about you again," Shauna's hard stare bore in to mine, and waited for me to say something.

I didn't.

The silence settled in with the snow. Somewhere far off, a child was laughing.

Eventually, Shauna stood up. She handed me a small card with a room number written in pen on one of its faces.

"She deserves more, Ash," Shauna said, "when she talks about you, I don't want her to ask any more questions. I hate not knowing the answers."

And with that said, she walked away.

* * *

 _short chapter, but it sets up the next. R &R_


	4. Chapter 4

_**The Girl in the Straw Hat**_

 _Well, with all the excitement in the Amourshipping department, I figured there was no better time to update. I have to say, I'm shocked that the writers gave us a kiss, but the way it happened didn't surprise me at all. I knew that if it was going to happen, Serena would be the one to make the move. And she did. Bravo. So now, a few years down the road, in my opinion, the ball is in Ash's court._

 _Read and Review ;)_

* * *

I stayed sitting on the bench deep in to night's arrival. My body, shivering from head to toe. My fingers, numb, holding on to the card. Room 301.

The snow began to fall harder on to the surface of the earth, and I looked up at the dark flurry made visible only by the neon street lamps scattered sparingly around the town square. Far off, the festival could be heard winding down, and soon the town would be asleep. Serena would be asleep. And in the morning, I could be gone.

"What am I so afraid of?" I whispered, the only evidence of my voice was the steam it left against the cold, which now blew away under the growing flurry.

Room 301.

Next thing I knew, my legs were pushing me forward.

 _xxxxx_

"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't let you through,"

I stared past two security guards standing before Serena's door. It was close to ten now, and I knew she'd be asleep soon. She always went to bed early, even back when we travelled together. But now, she had security. It was quite a change from two years ago—back when no one knew either of our names; when we only knew each other.

"Look," I began, trying my best not to look like a nervous stalker, "I know her. My name's Ash—Ash Ketchum—could you just—?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but we can't let you through. Tomorrow morning, she will be giving out autographs in the ballroom. You can talk to her then."

"I don't think you're hearing me," I gritted my teeth, growing angry now, "I _know_ her. Personally. Just tell her 'Ash is at the door,'"

The bigger guard turned and grabbed me by the collar faster than I could blink. He encroached his face in to mine.

"And I have been ordered to keep everyone out of that door. Personally." He shoved me backward down the hall. "Now get lost before I beat the shit out of you."

I growled and straightened out my jacket. I called Pikachu away from the two guys before he could zap them. I didn't want to cause trouble for Serena, but just when I actually get the nerve to talk to her, I can't. Another obstacle.

 _xxxxx_

Something in me ignited. I grew determined. Now that there was a visceral barrier around Serena, I only wanted to break it; to shatter everything around us until we were left alone.

I could feel my eyes grow bright with a familiar fire, and I sped off away down the stairs and back out in to the cold night, where the shadows of the pokemon center danced behind its own warm light. I drew my jacket closer around my body and walked around the tall building, my knees sinking in the snow. I moved towards the west side where I could try to guess her room, searching for her light, wondering if it could bring some sort of day to this darkness. My eyes moved to the third floor, to the second balcony from the far right. That had to be her room, but I wasn't sure.

Pikachu followed me as I drew closer. I pointed to the room that was my guess and then nodded over to one of the evergreens surrounding the building. Its branches, heavy with snow, nearly touched the balconies of the rooms.

"You think you could tell me if that's her?" I asked with a small smile.

Pikachu rolled his eyes and began to climb the tree. I bounced on my knees, trying to keep warm while I waited for his report. There were only three rooms on the third floor with the lights on, and I prayed that she was one of the few still awake; waiting.

Pikachu popped out from one of the long branches reaching out towards the windows. He crawled closer, sniffed the air, and peered inside. I watched his eyes grow bright and he nodded towards me, his tail wagging wildly.

"Okay, now get down before she sees you," I waved him back and began thinking of something—anything—to grab her attention. It didn't occur to me to maybe use Pikachu until he was already on his way down, but she probably wouldn't have seen him in the dark. I searched the ice around my feet for some rocks or a stick, and ended up making snowballs in between my gloved hands. I threw one up and missed the window, hitting the underside of the balcony.

Pikachu snickered, hopping off the trunk of the tree and bouncing his way on to my shoulders.

"What's she doing?" I asked him, wishing not for the first time, that pokemon could talk in perfect gramatical detail and form, "does she look sad? Happy? Bored?"

Pikachu shrugged.

"She's beautiful, isn't she? I didn't notice before—or, I mean, I did notice—but I…I just want to tell her that; that she's beautiful,"

I was rambling—trying to skirt around things I didn't want to admit—and Pikachu looked deadpanned and confused. He grunted his aggravation, but hopped down in to the snow and began helping me make more snowballs.

I grinned and took his piles to polish them up. On the third try, I smacked the corner of her window. Snow shattered down the glass and I froze.

I waited.

She came to the window, first as a silhouette shadowed by the light spilling out behind her. But when she opened the glass door to the balcony, and stepped outside, the moonlight illuminated the silver upon her ivory skin. Even from where I stood, far below her, I could see the pale starlight swimming in her eyes as she searched the dark.

Without another thought, I stepped out of the shadows and placed myself before the light pouring from her room. Her eyes found mine and she gasped my name in a whispered breath that was carried to me only by the movement of her lips. The sound of her was faint, but present in the breeze. I said her name back, in the same hushed tone which probably couldn't reach her from where she stood, high above me as though in the heavens.

"Ash!" Serena gasped again, as though she were waking from a dream, "what are you doing out here? It's freezing!

"I want to talk to you," I answered, grinning as her face grew pink upon her moonlit cheeks.

"And you couldn't knock on the door?"

"Your guards," I replied, and her expression withdrew in to comprehension, "I couldn't get past them."

"So you came to my balcony?" a small smile escaped her lips, "How very…unlike you."

"I always preferred a challenge."

"No, I mean," Serena drew closer to the iron railing, taking hold of it with nervous fingers, "it's just very unlike you…you've never been one to come after me."

I paused. Her words cut like a knife over the front of my chest, and I struggled to find my breath.

"I'm trying to change that," I said, taking off my cap to run a shaky hand through my hair as I took two steps closer to her. "I've grown very romantic these days, you'd be surprised."

Serena bit her lip, trying to hide her amusement. "From practice?" She eyed me suspiciously.

"Imagination, actually," I grinned, relieved to have made her smile, though she still seemed uneasy.

"What role do I play in your imagination, then? Do I take the dagger or the poison?"

"Neither," I said, leaning against the evergreen, "I would take both from your hand before you could draw any blood for my sake."

"How very noble of you."

"Serena," I said, my voice cutting through some wall I could feel her trying to build. I watched her through the dapple shadows swaying from the snow-ridden breeze. "Serena, can I…would you like to go for a walk?"

Serena looked at me, her mouth hinged open with a degree of incredulity. She then turned away to stare at her gloved fingers, still tight around the railing of the balcony.

"You didn't come to the festival,"

"I know," I said, my face sinking, though my gaze never left her, "I meant to but…"

Serena's eyes found mine again. She waited.

"But what, Ash?"

I sighed, biting my tongue on the back of my teeth. "I don't know. The parade."

"The parade?"

"Shauna says you talk about me," I moved towards her balcony, my hands now buried in my pockets, "Or, she said you used to talk about me. All the time."

Serena blushed again, one of her hands slipping off the railing to move a strand of gold hair away from her face.

"It's late, Ash,"

"I just want to walk with you," I whispered, my vision lost upon her frame, anchored to her every movement, "I promise, it won't be long."

Every season passed through me while I waited for her reply; but even winter's chill could not keep back the spring in me waiting bloom upon the provocation of her warm response. She swayed back and forth on her feet—swaying towards me, then away; towards me, then away. I wanted to reach out and just pull her down from her hesitation, which held my heart captive at the tip of my teeth.

"I'll have to lie to my guards. Palermo doesn't like me wandering the streets late at night with strangers," Serena lips broke in to a small smile.

"I'm not a stranger,"

"Aren't you?" She gave me a coy glance, but then looked back over her shoulder towards her room, "I'll be right down. Wait for me at the front,"

I beamed and jumped up to throw my fist in the air. I blushed when I heard her giggle, and when I looked back towards her balcony, she had already left.

 _xxxxx_

I managed to get rid of Pikachu, dropping him off at my room with a box of pokepuffs, and then rushed back down to the lobby. I only waited for about ten minutes before Serena appeared from the elevator, her bright gaze searching the room.

We locked eyes when she found me staring at her from the front desk. For a moment I couldn't even move. It wasn't until she gave me a small smile that I was able to catch my breath. I smiled back, wide, and rushed over to her to grab her by the hand and pull her out the doors with me. She didn't resist. But she was hesitant. I could sense it when we touched. I regretted being overly eager and did my best to calm my rapid heart, beating through the jerks in my hastened movements. When we reached the main street, only a block away, I let go of her hand and we fell in to a tense silence walking side-by-side.

Though it was late, there were still plenty of people—mostly couples—walking to and from café shops and bars that stayed open late. There was more nightlife than usual with the tourists in town for the ski season and the festival, and as we passed by the various restaurants, the heat from inside spilled on to our faces; enough to balm the cold for only a moment.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

"No,"

"Coffee?"

"I don't like coffee,"

"Right," I said, scratching the back of my neck, "I knew that."

Voices from the bars and patios echoed around our silence, and we watched all kinds of people stumbling and laughing through the street. The snow fell lightly across us, sticking to our clothes. I snuck a glance at Serena and saw her staring down at the sidewalk; snowflakes caught in her gold locks. I wished I had the courage to touch her again, but the adrenaline had gone and was now replaced by a nervous fear. I wondered if this had been a mistake.

We walked down, without a word, to the end of the street where it gradually grew more quiet. At the corner, a café was still open. There were only a few couples inside, but the place didn't close for another thirty minutes.

I stopped and gave Serena a shy grin, "Hot chocolate?"

She looked at me, and returned my smile carefully. "Okay,"

Encouraged, I let out a pent up sigh. We slipped in to the café, and the bell announced our entrance to the waitress, who told us to take a seat anywhere. I led Serena to a table by the bay window overlooking the street. The snow was already piling up on the edges of the glass against the panes.

We ordered our hot chocolates, and I watched Serena go through a dessert menu the waitress had given us to look over while we waited. She seemed distracted, but not on the list of pastries in front of her. Her eyes looked glazed over, as though her mind were a thousand miles away. I knew, in some way, I was losing her. And I needed to bring her back.

"What lie did you tell your guards?" I asked, and she looked up at me as though I had caught her by surprise. "When you left to come with me just now…what did you tell them?"

Serena sat stiffly in her chair, her back straight and poised as though the muscles in her body refused to tender.

"I told them I was meeting Shauna."

I was about to respond, but my mind began changing direction. I could feel myself losing the ability to make small talk. We were hiding so much from each other, and I couldn't approach her the way I used to. Again, there was that barrier.

"You have guards now."

Serena glanced back up at me from the menu. "I have guards now."

The waitress brought out our drinks and asked us if we wanted anything else. Serena declined, politely and I shook my head. I watched her take the first sip of her drink and wince at the heat. She brought a delicate hand over to her burned lips, holding it there a moment, frowning.

"Sometimes," Serena stopped, her blue eyes moving from the fingertips that had just brushed against her mouth, to me. "Sometimes I don't think before I act."

I kept my eyes on her fingers, watching them move back towards her drink.

"And I get burned easily," she said, a fast breath—almost like a laugh—escaped her.

"Sometimes I think too much," I focused in on her, aware of every twitching muscle, trying to read her expression, "and next thing I know, the drink's cold."

"Then you've changed. You were never one to overthink anything," she replied, her voice soft, as though she were disappointed.

I brought the hot chocolate to my lips and took a huge sip. The bitter-sweet liquid seared my throat.

"People change. People change in seconds," I dropped the cup a bit too hard on the table, letting it clatter loudly against the marble.

We grew quiet. I could feel myself getting angry for some reason—angry at _her_. I used to be so carefree, so relaxed; about everything. And now…I couldn't _move_ around her without analyzing how or when or what I should do. It had never been this hard. Not with her. Not with anyone. One minute I'm losing my mind, the next I'm locking it up with too many thoughts. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to fix it somehow, but as the minutes ticked on, I began to realize that there was no going back to the way things were. I felt as though Serena had robbed me of something—and I couldn't get it back, because she didn't even have it anymore.

That angered me.

"Serena," I started, but caught myself. My voice was shaking, and I needed to calm down before I said another word. I tried going back to small talk. "Do you want a pastry or whatever?"

She looked at me, shocked as though I had just slapped her in the face. She let out a scoff and began shaking her head.

"I'm going to go,"

"What?"

"This was a mistake,"

Serena rushed to grab her coat from the back of her chair. She pulled her scarf on and was tugging her blonde hair free while making her way out the door. She didn't even look back or say another word.

I cursed and slapped some money on the table before taking off after her. This time I didn't let myself think. This time I wasn't letting her go.


	5. Chapter 5

_**The Girl in the Straw Hat**_

 _Honestly, I should've included this scene in the last chapter; it just wasn't quite done yet. I've had this part of the story written for a while now...but it wasn't perfect. Even after cleaning it up, I'm still not convinced it's 'perfect' however I am happy with the dialogue now. Anyway, thank you to all of you who have reviewed. I never meant the story to get this complex, but...people are complex so oh well ;)_

* * *

"Serena!"

I ran after her through the dark streets, slippery with wet snow and ice. I had nearly reached her when she spun on her heels, her eyes swimming behind withheld tears.

"You didn't even tell me you were in Kalos," she began, her voice low and shaking, "A month, Ash. You've been here a month. Were you hoping not to see me?"

"How could I tell you?" I shot back, ripping my cap off my head to grip my hair, "It's been _years_."

Serena stood her ground; her arms hugging her coat tight around her small frame. She was breathing heavily, and the steam from her breath was enough to travel and slap my face.

"Why didn't you write me?"

The question caught me off guard. I stumbled for a response. I tried to dismiss the way her tears were affecting me, but I was losing so much strength, and so quickly. They were running down her face, and freezing like drops of crystal on her pale cheeks.

"You kissed me,"

"You didn't even call."

"You kissed me,"

"Not even a message,"

"You _kissed_ me!"

"I know what I did, Ash!" she shouted and we both fell silent. She stood there, biting her lip, now looking away towards the bar closing on the other side of the street; the customers stumbling blindly away and the waiters closing and locking the doors behind them. Her quiet tears continued to fall, melting holes in the snow beside her boots. "I know what I did."

I glared at the ice—the cold—and ran my fingers through my hair, slick from the frost.

"Why?"

Serena looked back at me, her face blank.

"Why did you do it?" I asked, biting my lip. My breath fell apart under the tension building inside my gut.

"Stop it, Ash."

"I just want to know why," my arms spread open to the sides, as if I were asking the most innocent question in the world.

But I knew I wasn't.

Serena's blue eyes narrowed to glare straight through me, "you want to blame me. Ash, I kissed you and _you_ didn't call."

"I didn't want to hurt you," I said, and the falling snow built between us. I stepped closer to her, my feet shuffling through the icy powder. "I would have. I would have hurt you. I didn't want to see you get hurt because of me."

Serena's face fell. Her mouth began to open and close, robbed of words. She looked down at her gloved fingers, tight around her coat.

"Well, then I suppose it's a good thing you walked away," Serena whispered, her bright eyes trembling, "that way you didn't have to see anything."

"Serena," I started, moving towards her again, but I didn't know what to say. Silence settled over us as the snow continued to fall on to our faces, both fixed down and away from each other.

"It's late, Ash," Serena whispered, turning back towards the street.

I stopped her, grabbing her hand and pulling her closer to me; my own eyes freezing within their growing pools. I tried to blink the water away, but it was getting harder to pretend that I was okay with this. I wasn't. I wasn't okay.

"Serena, wait,"

My words drew the breath out of her. I could feel her body tremble beneath my hand, still fastened around her waist.

"I was scared," I whispered, the confession breaking me down to the core, exposing me. "Your kiss scared me,"

Serena looked up at me, her brows knit together by the confusion falling over her expression.

"You're not scared of anything," she said, her voice as gentle as the starlight.

I couldn't help but release a small smile. The way she was looking at me now, reminded me of us before; back when we fought things together.

"I'm scared of you,"

Before my mind could catch up with my heart, I leaned forward and pressed my lips against her mouth—as cold as air, but as soft as the snow. She still tasted like chocolate, more sweet than bitter now, and I moved slowly to savor her; to drink her in gently.

"Ash," she breathed in to my lips, wrapping her arms around my neck when I brought her in closer to me, keeping us connected. "Ash, wait,"

I wasn't listening. I kept deepening the kiss; one hand moving from her waist to her jaw, brushing away her tears with my thumb.

"Ash!" Serena's hands moved to the front of my chest, pushing me away, hard. "Ash, stop!"

I stepped back, my mouth ajar. My mind tried to draw back to the moment, but my blood still pounded in my ears and I began to feel my legs crumpling beneath me. For some reason, I saw my dad walking out the door. I felt, somehow, that I was doing the same.

"Isn't this what you wanted?" I looked at her, sideways, trying to read her expression. She looked pained—shocked, and out of breath—but mostly pained.

Serena buried her face in her hands. "Ash," she sobbed, looking up at me with one gloved hand still over her mouth, "you're breaking my heart. All over again—Ash. What do _you_ want?"

"God, Serena, I don't know!" I groaned, hanging my head back frustrated, "I just want things to go back to the way there _were_. Before all of this, I guess. Back when it was all…I don't know— easy!"

Serena froze. Her face looked as pale as the streetlamps hitting us with a harsh light I didn't notice before.

"Well, I can't _go_ back, Ash," she whispered. Her voice barely audible above the wind, which began to grow and howl from the mountains. " _We_ can't go back."

"Sure we can," I didn't want to hear it. Something inside me was tearing apart. "I wasn't like this before. Serena—your kiss—I wasn't like this before. There has to be a way you can fix it."

"Fix it?" she muttered, lost.

"I wasn't like this before!" I shouted, years of pent up anger exploding on to her, "You changed me, and I didn't want to be changed! I was perfectly fine before you came along and ruined it—and all with a stupid kiss!"

Serena began to shake. She stepped back, her eyes melting in to fresh tears. "I'm—I'm sorry, Ash, I—,"

"You shouldn't have kissed me," I muttered, hiding my face beneath my cap. I clenched my fists; my jaw working up and down beneath some sort of rage. "You shouldn't have kissed me."

We stood there, now far apart. I couldn't look at her. My eyes were frozen on to the ground, as though I were trying to melt the floor with the fire burning in them.

Serena moved away from me. I heard her boots crunch beneath the snow. She made it a couple of steps before stopping.

When I looked up, she was staring at me with her bright eyes rimmed by drying tears. She suddenly shifted on her heels and marched back towards me. Her face again inches away from mine.

"I loved you," Serena said.

Then she slapped me, hard.

"I loved you," she whispered again, her gaze suddenly softening—breaking—upon my face, "And I would love you over and over and over again, even if it meant leaving my heart open for you to break. I'm not afraid of getting hurt."

Serena bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She looked up for a moment to pull back her tears, and I tried to speak but she placed her hand over my mouth.

"No, you don't get to say another word, Ash Ketchum," she pulled herself together with a deep breath, "you don't get to say another word to me. I don't forgive you. Not yet."

She slipped her hand off from my mouth, left open and speechless, and then walked away; disappearing in to the shadows, thick and formless above the snow.

 _xxxxx_

 _You're not scared of anything._

That night, I couldn't sleep. The absence of solace left it impossible to drift in to dreams repetitious with declarations of love returned. I didn't want to relive the moment, nor pretend I could have said or acted differently. There was no room for imagination now. Reality had etched itself in so permanently—the stroke of its pen lining across every identity I had given myself—rebranding me over numerous lies I had tried to conceal.

 _I loved you._

I had never been able to avoid love. Even when I thought I did—even despite my active barrier to prevent it—all of my adventures had been driven by the emotion.

 _I don't forgive you. Not yet._

Serena—her kiss—had been the visceral realization of that. It wasn't, and had never been, the cause.

 _And I would love you over and over again._

* * *

 _X_

 _X_

 _X_

 _Again, sorry for the brevity. This really should have been tagged on to the last chapter. Apologies._


	6. Chapter 6

_**The Girl in the Straw Hat**_

* * *

 _written while listening to the new Bon Iver album. good grief._

* * *

 _Three years later_

Even at the PokeMart, all the TVs were kept on the same channel:

"And as the results conclude, we find that Ash Ketchum has again won the Indigo League for the third consecutive time, adding on to his various regional victories, which include Hoenn, Johto, and Sinnoh. It had been approximately thirty years since any trainer has showed so much promise, and fans are lining up to give their praise and applause to the twenty-one-year-old. Will we see more from him in this exciting new year? Has he truly become 'the unbeatable trainer'? Tune in tonight for a recap of the victory, and a one-hour special on the young trainer's journey to becoming a Pokemon Master."

 _xxxxx_

"Did you ever have doubts about, either, your ability as a trainer or your pokémon's potential? Did you ever believe you'd be this successful?"

The lights were hot and bright over the stage. It was difficult to focus on the interviewer when I kept squinting at the luminous glare mirrored on every reflective surface around me. It was like being suffocated in light, and I remembered why I hated interviews. I tried to use my hat to block some of the intensity, despite the director's gestured objections.

"Of course I had doubts, everyone has doubts," I began, smiling in to the camera, "But I went through a long period of time when I so afraid of failing my pokemon, that I stepped away from battling for a while and went in to research—which actually came in handy when I got back into pokemon battles."

The interviewer chuckled, and muttered some joke which called for fake laughter from us both.

"But it's interesting," he continued, pushing up his spectacles to read his notes, "you've mentioned quite a few times in various interviews that, 'you were afraid of failing.' How did that fear develop, since before your research you had such a long history of competing in leagues? And what gave you the courage to go back in to battling?"

I took a deep breath. The depth of his follow-up caught me by surprise, but I kept a small smile on my face as I drew up an answer.

"I think," I bit my lip before going on, "people are always afraid of failing, especially when it has to do with something you love."

I paused.

"I love pokemon. I love pokemon battles. For a long time, I don't think I realized how much they meant to me," I smiled again, this time more easily, "so I got scared for a while, but then I got the courage to come back."

"And what gave you that courage?"

Even beyond the lights, I could see all the faces of the production crew listening intently to every word spoken upon the stage. I fixed my gaze back on the interviewer.

"It took someone very special,"

 _xxxxx_

As I was leaving the studio, a number of reporters swarmed me in the parking lot; firing pictures and questions. By now, I had grown used to ignoring them. I rushed towards my car, Pikachu on my shoulder, and had almost made it when a reporter stepped in front of me with a microphone directed at my face.

"Ash Ketchum, in the past it's been rumored that you were once connected to former Kalos Queen, Serena Yvette, and we were wondering if you had any reaction regarding the announcement of her recent engagement?"

I froze. My hat was low over my eyes, which gave me a split-second to collect myself before giving anything away. I looked at the reporter's face, spearing him with more severity than I meant to, but avoided his camera while speaking in to the microphone.

"I have no comment."

 _xxxxx_

The next day, I drove to Pallet Town for my mother's birthday. I got there around three, and surprised her with a bouquet of roses and some mint chocolates from her favorite chocolatier in Pewter City. She immediately ushered me and Pikachu in to our old home and began to put on a pot of tea. There was going to be a celebration tonight, she told me, at the lab. Professor Oak invited the whole town.

Pikachu slept on the sofa while I listened as she rattled on in that motherly way, which made every detail of domestic life the most exciting adventure in the world. She made large gestures when talking about Mrs. Kingsley's Pigeys getting lost in the forest after old Cedrick's Rattata broke them free from their cage. She, and apparently several other folks from town, had to help poor Mrs. Kingsley go on a wild goose chase for the Pigeys or else there'd be no eggs at the farmer's market next week.

My mind tried to stay focused. My effort was honest as anyone's, but I kept hearing the word _engagement_ as though it were the condolence followed by the news of a lost loved one. Perhaps, that's exactly what it was.

"Did you hear me, Ash?"

My open eyes snapped back in to conscious awareness when Mom placed her face directly before me. She looked aggravated, a crease forming in the center of her forehead, but her expression shortly relaxed in to worry after I apologized.

"I was just asking if you still took cream and sugar with your tea," she muttered, now watching me from over her shoulder as she went in to the kitchen to bring out the tray full of china.

I told her to just leave the tea black.

When Mom came back in, she handed me my cup and sat down close beside me on the couch. We settled in to a long silence, one heavy with a mother's acute awareness for subtle tension. I tried to sip my dark tea with feigned easiness, though I should have known that any effort to conceal me increasing rigidity would be in vain. Mom placed a hand on my shoulder and gave me a warm smile; one worth as much as the comfort found sitting before a burning fireplace.

"Your interview went well last night,"

"Thanks," I said, and bared my teeth after taking an overly eager sip of my burning tea. "I—uh—the interviewer. He asked good questions."

There was another long pause; one filled with a drawn out expectancy of come kind. I wasn't sure who was doing the anticipating, or who would be the one to delivery the expected.

I took another long sip of tea.

After another short while, Mom got up. She snatched the half-empty cup from my hands and gathered up all of the china to place them back on the tray and return to the kitchen. I heard her drop everything in to the sink upon an echo of loud clattering and within the next moment she was back on the couch beside me. She didn't look angry. Determined, and perhaps a little frustrated, but not angry.

"You don't talk to people," she said, and I was immediately about to respond, but she held up a hand, "No, let me finish."

I turned towards Pikachu for help, but he just looked at me, scared.

"Now, I don't mean to attack you—you've developed a wonderful character—and I am very proud of you," Mom said, a serious line carved upon her forehead, "but I wish you would let people help you from time to time. But they can't help you, because you don't _talk_ to people."

I sank down in to the couch, wishing to somehow be enveloped and buried beneath the cushions.

Somewhere outside, a spearow chirped.

Mom's face lightened, a small smile pushing up at her heavy gaze. "You have a lot of people that care about you. Might as well make them useful."

She stood up and went back in to the kitchen.

 _xxxxx_

The wedding was held in Lumoise, in the town square beneath large spreads of white tents and canopies. The entire ceremony would be held in the courtyard; the white chairs had been set up along both sides of a red carpet aisle leading to a small gazebo, where I assumed the bride and groom would be saying their vows. In the other tents surrounding the open space designated for the traditional service, there was an open bar, a dance floor, a social lounge, the buffet with a carving station, and the dining hall.

I walked through the gaiety like a stone sinking beneath the airy ambiance. The world was bright here; all clothed in white as though everyone's dark spots were nonexistent. I put on the attire myself just to get through the day without breaking in to pieces and shattering upon a more realistic shore. Generally, I enjoyed weddings and observing people's happiness from a distance. I always believed other people made better love stories than me. I still do.

But it would be different seeing her here. The coming and leaving would be harder, the heaving in my vines—those still tangled in her memories—they'll try and make me remember things I've wanted to just accept. Every move forward, I find another foot caught in the crease of my hope.

I breathed and looked up at sky breaking open in to cloudless sunlight.

This could be the beginning of moving on. Perhaps seeing her with him will give me the closure I need to set my feet back on a solid bank, one that I can walk on, one without all the vines.

"I'm surprised we were invited," Gary smirked, coming back towards me after picking up a couple of beers from the bar. He handed me my drink and _clincked_ our bottles together before taking a long and easy sip. "I mean, I'm not surprised _you_ were invited. You're always invited. But I hardly know Diantha."

I looked at him, offering a crooked grin. "What makes you think you're not my plus one?"

"You're an ass," Gary took another long sip of his drink and gave a satisfied sigh, "but seriously, look around. Who wasn't invited?"

He was right. The wedding had to be for about a thousand people, and all of them drifted in wearing bright and dazzling colors. Their soft laughter and hushed chatter resounded beyond the city, calling for the world's attention. I watched the floating figures entering the courtyard—ghosts whose lightness I could not share—searching for her; holding my breath, as dead as a tomb, waiting for the sight to roll a stone away.

Clemont and Bonnie moved in to the scene, their eyes and faces bright. The younger girl—or woman now—ran over to me and threw her arms around my neck. She had grown up. Her hair, long and gold, curled past her shoulders and her blue gaze matched the shades of her light dress. She then introduced herself to Gary while Clemont shook my hand and gave me a solid pat on the shoulder. I could tell, in his handshake and demeanor, that he had grown more comfortable and confident in himself. As he should be. He was the youngest professor now at the University of Lumoise, teaching about four classes a day on battle techniques concerning electric type pokemon.

"You look dashing, Ash," Bonnie grinned, her voice as bubbly as the curls pinned to her head, "I would have never known how to imagine you in a tux, but I have to say you clean up well."

She toasted me with her champagne and I chuckled.

Clemont took the drink out of Bonnie's small hands. "I'm pretty sure the drinking age still applies here,"

"I think," Gary began and snatched the champagne back before handing it to the eighteen-year-old, "there are always exceptions for beautiful ladies,"

Bonnie blushed, and Clemont rolled his eyes in a heavily exaggerated manner. He came up close to my ear and whispered, "Please tell me he's bad news, that way I won't seem like an ass when I punch him."

I only shrugged and laughed in to my beer.

Despite recent transactions, the others fell in to easy conversation. Bonnie went on and on about how beautiful the ceremony was going to be, and how all of the decorations were imported from that region, or this region, or wherever. Gary chimed in, pretending to know a thing or two about wedding planning, which impressed Bonnie. This is turn left Clemont to provide the sarcastic comments while the other two flirted heavily with one another.

I kept my eyes towards the incoming guests, my hands getting soaked from the condensation on my drink. I don't think I had moved for a good few minutes when Clemont came beside me, following my stare.

"Are you looking for her?" he asked, taking a small sip of his scotch, grimacing as it went down his throat.

"For who?"

"Don't shit me, Ash," Clemont moved his shoe back and forth over the blades of grass on the ground as if to measure their cut, "she's on her way."

"Is, uh—," I raked a hand through my combed hair, trying to keep some of it from falling back over my eyes, "is he good to her?"

I had to ask. I knew Clemont would give me an honest response, despite anything I might want to hear.

His blue eyes regarded me, colored with an empathetic expression, and gave me a small smile.

"He is."

I nodded, taking in a deep and shaky breath. I cleared my throat and noticed that my drink was empty. Faltering, I told Clemont I was going to get another when he stopped me.

"He's good to her, Ash," he said again, pulling my attention back to his words with a calm hand, which kept a firm grip on my shoulder, "but…you were good to her too. You always had been. If you have anything to tell her…"

Clemont looked around and then stepped forward, his tone low. "If you have anything to tell her, say it before the day all this," he gestured to the scenery, "is about her."

I pressed my lips together in a firm line, but nodded. Clemont sighed. I gave him two pats on the chest before walking away to get another drink.

 _xxxxx_

When she came in the world fell away. Every absent star hiding behind the bright heavens collapsed down from their places and ripped open the firmament like a curtain, tearing the azure folds from their woven stitches. Only space was left. A quiet, still void in which her gentle steps echoed beyond the timeless bounds of her apparition. She was all that was there. And I stood in awe of the sun in her hair and the moons in her eyes. I wondered if this is what it felt like to die; to see life go on without one of the billions of stars disappearing from eternal lines. She was all that was there. I was as insignificant as a particle of dust until she looked at me, and smiled.

 _xxxxx_

The ceremony found itself fulfilled upon sunset, and as soon as the light cleared away from the twilight to settle in, the festivities continued.

I would like to say that I had paid attention for at least a majority of the wedding, but I didn't. I couldn't. Serena sat near the front with her fiancé, and I watched her for part of every minute. From what I could tell, she looked…happy. However, I hardly knew how to read her expression anymore. When she entered before, the others and I had already taken our seats, so all she could do was wave towards us as she passed by, her eyes briefly grazing over mine.

Her dress was a strapless pastel pink with a tight corset but a loose silhouette, which blew behind her with an ethereal sort of grace. Her hair had grown even longer, now cascading oceans of loose gold waves down her back; touching the part of her waist where _his_ hand had been.

After the ceremony the two got up together, him guiding her out, touching her and stabbing me at the same time. I stayed in my seat as everyone moved around me, too pained to move. I hadn't expected to be so out of breath at the sight of her with him. It had been so long since I'd last seen her, and so long since I even considered…it had been so long since it hurt.

"You okay?" Clemont asked, sitting back down next to me when he saw that I hadn't moved.

I shrugged and offered him a crooked grin before wiping my face. "Yea—I mean—no. I will be, I think. I'll be okay, right?"

Clemont's lips fell for only a moment. The next his soft gaze colored encouragement on to his expression. "You'll be okay. Everyone always ends up okay."

I nodded, swallowing hard. "I'll be okay."

 _xxxxx_

Later on during the night, after the dinner and the dancing was well underway, Serena finally came over to greet our small group. She gave Clemont and Bonnie a warm hug, while her fiancé offered familiar handshakes to the two. When she stood before me, her face calm and beautiful—a silent evening sky—she offered me only a small smile.

"It's good to see you, Ash," she nodded, her voice as soft as that summer breeze; a wind I knew quite well. "I hope you're doing well."

I searched her eyes as if to find a place to leave my heart there with her, that way I wouldn't have to keep holding on to the source of all my bleeding. "It's good to see you too," I allowed a smile to leave my lips, because I truly meant the words despite it all. I knew, that deep inside me, I was happy to see that she had found someone who wouldn't hurt her; someone who seemed like they'd protect and cherish her. That's all I wanted for her.

We stayed quiet, still watching each other. I noticed her smile falter—it was so slight a crack anyone could have missed it had they not known her face the way I did.

"It's nice to meet you," Gary interrupted, giving me a sort of sideway glance to express his sudden suspicious, "I've heard a lot about you from, uh, the news."

Serena let out a polite laugh, but quickly slipped a glance at me before turning back to Gary to reply to his introduction.

I watched her interact with everyone, standing outside and out place. She was avoiding me, in her own way, by being distant and short. It was not only unsettling, but confusing. I wanted her to know that I was truly happy for her, that she shouldn't have to be careful around me anymore, that I would still be there for her, a friend forever. I wanted her to know that.

With a newfound boldness, I took hold of Serena's hand to draw her attention away from the conversation. "Would your fiancé mind if I asked you to dance with me?" I smiled easily, calming the air between us while looking from Serena back to her fiancé.

Her fiancé shrugged without a care in the world and offered her the decision.

Serena stared at me, her blue eyes flashing with a degree of irritability, but she accepted.

I led her away from the others.


	7. Chapter 7

_**The Girl in the Straw Hat**_

* * *

 _written while considering the horror of a Thanksgiving without sweet potatoes..._

 _Hello there! So after this we have one more chapter and should be out by Sunday. I just need it to be perfect...but in the meantime I didn't want to hold on to this any longer. Also, my original plan was to cut the last chapter at the end of the wedding, but that would have been even more mean of me that the cliffhanger that was given. This chapter, obviously, also ends on a cliffhanger, however it is more hopeful—at least I hope you think so._

 _Thank you to all who review and showed your support! Truly means a lot. Please enjoy._

* * *

The tent loomed high over the dance hall, it's underbelly dazzled with chandeliers and glass lights. It felt warm here, and calm. Other couples twirled this way and that within the bubbles of their giddy expressions. I led Serena on to the polished wood floors trying to imitate the mood of the firelight and the people, both of which comforted the hammering in my ears. As I brought her in to me and we began to move, I was surprised by how easy it was to fall in to the moment. The violins had a way of drawing tension out of anyone, and my muscles reacted to their melodic waltz by uncoiling. Serena and I were in step with each other, falling in to place with the other dancers, who soon began to disappear.

"You've learned how to dance," Serena whispered, her eyes still avoiding mine as we spun our way across the floor. It was a Kalosian waltz, an easy dance lacking much rigid form and it was easy to improvise under the tempo.

"You'd be surprise how light on my feet I am, nowadays," I muttered, somewhat intoxicated by her scent; the smell of a crisp star-filled night just after the falling of snow.

"From practice?" she looked at me now, a smile trying to push its way up her lips but she suppressed it.

I grinned, gazing down in to her. "Imagination. Always, imagination."

Serena looked away, but I saw the flush blooming across her ivory cheeks. We continued to dance; the violins pulling at the pressure between us. The sound was harsh, but beautiful to me.

"How are you?" I asked, leaning in to her ear. Though the question gave the appearance of simplicity, I wanted it to be more.

Serena caught on, her body tensing beneath my hands. She gave an instinctive glance towards the direction of her fiancé, who was chatting away with Gary and Clemont a bit away from us.

"I'm well, Ash. I'm," she paused and turned back to look in to my chest, as though she were hoping to find her answer in my heart. "I'm okay."

I stepped away for her to spin, and we fell back in to each other.

"I want you to be good," I said, offering a small smile which required more effort than I had anticipated, "I mean—I want you to be great. I want that for you. I want you—I want you to know that I want that for you."

Serena didn't look up. Her muscles, beneath the tips of my fingers, were coiling and uncoiling—breathing heavily as though in pain. I could feel myself beginning to grow insecure.

"So you're a Champion now," Serena said with a distant formality, her gaze now fixed down and away at the floor as we danced, "I guess you changed your mind about research."

As she came back in from another spin, I caught her and forced her eyes on to me. "Your words always seem to wake me up,"

She breathed, her chest heaving up and down against me. "No, I—,"

"I want to say I'm sorry, Serena," I cut her off, my eyes flashing her with a determination I knew she'd recognize, and it began to burn away my insecurities. "I am sorry,"

"Not here, don't do this here," she grew distressed, but I kept a firm grip on her.

"Serena,"

Serena yanked herself out of my arms and began marching out of the tent.

I looked after her, shocked. Had I done something wrong?

I gave a quick glance towards the others, who weren't even paying attention to our scene, and then ran after her. She had already made it past all of the tents and the lights and moved in to the garden near the far corner of the courtyard, where the world was nothing but hedges and roses. For a moment, I lost her in the darkness. Moving almost blindly towards the sound of running water, I found her standing beside a fountain; a single, dim light casting her soft shadow on to the flowers.

"Serena," I breathed, at a loss for more to say. I thought of handling a fuse, one that could kindle at any moment, and I didn't know what words could ignite the bomb. "Serena, I'm sorry."

She didn't respond. Not right away. I could tell that she was shaking, cold from the night, as she stared down in to the fountain's water. I drew closer to her, coming beside her light frame. But there was ice building around her. I knew I had to stop it from walling her away from me. I knew I had to be quick.

"Serena, listen," I sputtered, my lips twisting with fear, "I—we were friends. I want you to be happy, I—,"

"Please stop, Ash."

"Why?" I yanked her around to face me, her eyes bristled with ripples wavering against the lamplight. When she looked at me, her red mouth parted in a silent gasp, one tear made its way down her pale cheek.

She pulled away. "Please stop saying you're sorry. I—I can't take it."

I looked at her, searching for some sort of message I might have missed. I didn't understand. My hands were still out before me, forming the empty space she no longer filled. I dropped them and stepped back.

"I want you to be happy," I told her, my own eyes searing with wet pain.

Serena looked as though she were about to faint. She sat down on the edge of the stone fountain, and placed a shaking hand over her mouth. After a while, her silence froze time within its hidden hourglass. Each particle of sand halted before the peak of the mountain building up from the bottom. The glass cracking.

Without warning, Serena bolted upright. Her eyes on fire.

"And that's all you have to say."

It wasn't a question. Her breath trembled beneath the rage of its truth.

"For three years, I have tried _hating_ you and all you have to say is I'm sorry. Two words," she choked back a sob, her hand back over her mouth, "and you break my heart all over again."

"You tried hating me," I repeated that statement, trying to wrap my brain around it at the same time. "You tried hating me?"

"And now, you want me to be happy," Serena continued her monologue, as though trying to break down her own version of reality, "now, I can't hate you."

"You tried hating me?" I took a step towards her, "Do you _want_ to hate me?"

"Ash, don't play stupid with me," Serena snapped, but another sob worked its way up her throat, "I had to move on. You walked away. Again."

"Again?" It took me a moment to realize that she meant three years ago, "Because you said you wouldn't forgive me—which I understood—I wasn't ready to be forgiven. I am now."

"You think the terms of my forgiveness were dependent on _you_?" she shook her head, shocked, "I would have forgiven you the next day. The next hour. The next _minute_. I was hopelessly in love with you, Ash!"

I stood back, stunned. I didn't know how my heart could soar and break at the same time. Nonetheless, it beat hard and fast against the wall of my chest. My breaking chest. I was ready to bleed all over the floor and lie at her feet. She had said this before...the words were familiar.

 _I loved you. And I would love you over and over again..._

"You loved me. Even after...even then?" I croaked, blinking, caught in the headlights of her anger, which speared me through that gaze she held so fixed.

That gaze, eventually, softened. Serena inhaled the cool night deeply, as though to steady her heart.

"I adorned the stars and the planets with your smile," her voice cracked and she gave a painful smile which quickly faltered, "and all I want to do is take it down, but I can't. I'm either too weak or too far away."

My blood leapt inside my veins, just to hear those words and know that they had been true. I was absolutely, inconceivably elated, but in that next moment crushed. Devastated. She had used the word _loved_.

"Don't," I said, coming closer to her again, but she moved away so I stopped. "Don't take me down. Leave me in you stars, and I'll leave you in mine!"

Serena gave a harsh laugh which broke and made her weep. "I'm getting married now. And he is _good_."

"I know," I said, my heart cracking like the hourglass. I lost so much time. I had lost so much time. "I know, but—this is me, Serena—and this time I'm not walking away."

Serena bit her lip, placing her hands on my chest to push me away, "Ash, stop looking at me like that,"

"How am I looking at you?"

When I overpowered her, she collapsed in to me. Her tears dripping off her nose and on to my shirt.

"You always do that. You always _look_ at me as though you are handing me your heart in a chest, but every time I've reached out to take it—to take your heart in exchange for mine—you take yours back and mine along with you."

I pushed her away from me, gently, so that I could meet her bright starry gaze, holding our world steady by her arms.

"I _am_ giving you my heart. And with my heart all of me. It's yours, if you want it, though I know," my voice broke though I swallowed hard to crack through the lump in my throat, "I know it might be too late. I know you might love someone else. I know you still want to hate me, and that you might not love me anymore, but I have loved you since the very day I took your hand in mine; since the child in me learned how to see because he _saw_ you."

She continued to cry and all I could do was hold her. Her chest racked itself with sobs, shaking me to my core.

"Why are you doing this?" Serena cried, crumpling inside me. Her hands gripped my tux, turning as white as though the pale moon had melted in to her skin, refining her blood with its silvery light. "Why now? You don't mean it. I can't trust you, Ash...I can't."

"Serena," I whispered, titling her chin back up at me.

I almost kissed her. But I didn't. I wanted to—oh, did I want to—but she was already breaking apart in my arms. One kiss would shatter her. I just wanted her to know I loved her. I couldn't ask for anything else. Time had been the dagger and the poison. We suffered both at my expense.

"I just wanted you to know," I brought her in to me again, rocking us both back and forth, "I just—I wanted you to know."

We stayed there; unstuck from the linear movement of time's unforgiving path, going on forever and forever without the mercy of pause. But for that moment, unhinged from the infinite, I held the body of the moon and the stars, which must have melted together before the beginning of all things to create the heart in my hands. She was silver and soft. I breathed in her timeless beauty as though this was the last time her universe would be close enough to touch; and I memorized every galaxy and star and sun belonging to her, engraving their constellations forever in to my sky, to shine upon the night should I ever again get lost.

"I have to go,"

Serena pulled away from me. The cold came rushing back. She became a vision, untouchable to my fingers, disappearing from my eyes. Her were lips haunted by the saddest of smiles, one embittered by finality.

"I have to go," she said again, as she began to float away back in to the darkness. "And this time, I can not have you follow me."

Before her apparition left me alone, I reached out in to the dark as though to give her one last piece of me.

"I love you,"

And with her, disappeared my heart.

 _xxxxx_

 _Three weeks later  
Castelia City, Unova_

"And the winner is," the referee raised the green flag on my side of the battlefield, "Ash Ketchum."

I pulled myself together for a victorious smile. Pikachu jumped on to my shoulders with pride, his cheeks still buzzing from the battle. The crowd around me was roaring.

Yet, I couldn't hear a sound.

 _xxxxx_

"So you're in the Unovan finals, big deal," Gary shrugged before he and Cilan bought another couple of drinks while we watched the league highlights from the bars, "This will—what?—be your fourth regional championship?"

"Yes, what an unimpressive achievement," Cilan remarked merrily, giving much attention to his gin and tonic.

I kept quiet, my focus absorbed by the puddles of condensation on the counter as I pulled the water apart with my finger to connect and form different pools—watery worlds which I controlled at the tip of my touch. I became fixated on forming a wet globe, one in which my heart was whole again. If only people mended so easily.

Before my imagination could breath life in to the formation of puddles I had created, the bartender took a rag and wiped down the counter. Everything I had made disappeared and no longer mattered.

"God, you're a mess," Gary groaned, circling a finger along the top of his ale glass. He looked up back up at the highlights of the match and brought the drink to his lips, foam sticking to his skin for half a second as he pulled away. "Look, Ashy boy, you took out that guy with one pokemon. If you win tomorrow, you will be champion of _four_ regions. _four_. They'll be screaming your name all across the continent!"

"Is it a girl?" Cilan smirked, fixing his green bowtie with a classy elegance. He didn't mind getting right to the point. "Did she break your heart, or did you break hers?"

I neither had the energy, nor the will to respond. My fingers kept drumming the counter, waiting for more condensation to roll off my lager.

"Both," Gary answered for me, and I could feel his eyes rolling in frustration.

"Ah," Cilan sighed, his bright eyes on me as a pitiful smile danced its way across his lips, " _parting is such sweet sorrow_. Tell me, which death did you die?"

I looked up without moving a muscle. "I suppose it was suicide," I muttered, my lips twisted by a mild irritation, "Time did the killing, but I handled the hilt."

"You're both very strange, you know that?" Gary remarked, still looking at the TV.

I began making bubbles in my beer.

Cilan took my shoulders and lifted me up before I drowned in my drink. "Time also does the mending, if you let it alone," he offered, trying not to grin at my dramatics, "no one should ever handle Time's blade. It's a mistake to think we can control its direction."

"Honestly, I think I'll just live forever in a memory," I was a bit more drunk than I had initially realized, "forget time. It's escapable in a memoric world."

"If you live in a memory, you'll _become_ a memory," Cilan chuckled.

"And what's wrong with that?"

"Memories do nothing but fade,"

I narrowed my eyes at him, then fell back on to the bar with a sigh.

"Alright, you're both drunk," Gary announced, standing from his stool after slapping some cash on to the counter, "I'm taking him back to the hotel. Cilan, we'll see you tomorrow."

"Well, if I'm also drunk, shouldn't you pay for my cab?"

"I'm honest, but not a saint," Gary grabbed me by the shirt, hooking one of my arms around his shoulder as he dragged me out of the bar. I waved groggily back at Cilan, who gave a single chuckle before turning back to his gin and tonic, stirring the drink slowly with a straw.

 _xxxxx_

Sometime during the night, after the world had fallen asleep, I fell back awake. I stumbled out of my bed towards the balcony of my small hotel room, opening the glass doors leading outside. A hard breeze disrupted the papers and clothes and sheets now scattered across the room. I didn't care. I stepped out in to the dark and looked over at the city, the flickering lights reflecting the still stars searing faintly across the velvet sky, promising constancy. I felt like praying to them aloud, but didn't have the breath. In fact, I felt a bit nauseous.

Still, I slid down, my back against the black railing, and lifted my head up to the sky so that all I could see was its rare serenity—too rarely regarded by those who never look up. Well, I was looking up now, disappointed by the lack of a moon; mother to the smaller holes of light allowing glimpses of a universe beyond them. Was it a universe without _her_? If so, I wouldn't follow the lights.

I would rather stay here, where I know she looks upon the same stars and sighs upon the same moon. Their bridges would bring enough of her to comfort me while I lived without her tangible breath upon my lips. It occurred to me then, that I could still love her. Far away. Perhaps not the way I had hoped, but even so—a world without loving her is hardly a world at all, isn't it?

A bit hung-over and sick, I pushed myself back up to my feet with considerable effort. By now, Pikachu was awake and watching me somewhat disinterestedly. After a moment, he decided to fall back asleep while I began to smile—faint, and nearly invisible on my lips—but I could feel it forming beneath my numb face. The pain was dimming now. The wound across my heart began to mend—not completely, or even close—but no longer bleeding at the slightest ebb of a pulse.

Again I looked at that same sky, the very one I shared with her, and reached up my hand as though to grab the tail-end of a constellation and pull it down from its heights. I wanted to dig up a piece of the early universe and hold it up to the light. What secret riches did those cosmic shards of glassy sky hide behind their oldest stars? Perhaps if I pulled apart enough darkness, I could muster up something—a celestial jewel, an archaic mirror of heaven—that retained an eternal imprint of my promise to her. I wanted to embed my love in it, to prove that spacial prisms could not split our beings; evidence that souls went beyond space.

In the end, I chose the Northern Star. Were the moon not hidden, perhaps I would have hidden my love in one of its craters, but as it has shown me tonight, the moon is not as constant with its ever-shifting faces and colors. The North Star never wanes as such and is not influenced by a sun. Indeed, it even gives direction.

And looking out towards that star, which now hung over the stadium, I whispered her name.

 _xxxxx_

"Alright, buddy! This is it. Number four," Gary held up an open hand as if to pledge his full loyalty and encouragement. He and Cilan waited with me in the locker room while the battle for third-place was being decided. They had done their best to make me look presentable, even after finding me fast asleep on the balcony this morning.

"You win this one, and you'll be the youngest trainer to take home four regional championships in a row, as well as hold the longest winning streak by a trainer under twenty-five," Gary continued to smile, always focusing his strategy for 'comforting a broken-hearted friend' by bringing up his or her accomplishments. For me, he found this rather easy. "It's all very exciting."

"Yipee," I managed, still battling an unsettled stomach and a fresh wave of pain wrought by a dream in which Serena was in my arms.

"Pika, pika!" Pikachu helped, jumping on to Gary's shoulder, the two giving me their best encouraging face.

"I think I'm going to sit," I mumbled, falling on one of the benches, pushing my back against the lockers facing a couple of TVs fitted high along the wall above the doorway. I nebulously began to scan through them; one was showing the current battle, another was a talk show predicting the championship match, and one was just news.

"I will do the same," Cilan announced as he took a seat next to me, amused. He always seemed to be mildly amused by something, as the corner of his lips was eternally set to quirk up. "You look dreadful."

"Thank you,"

"No, but I really mean it."

"And I, truly, thank you."

The room went quiet, save the TVs. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the lockers and they allowed a slight _chinked_ , while I supposed Cilan and Gary watched the ongoing battle displayed upon one of the screens. My ears found the monotonic sound of the news anchor, and attached themselves, with lazy ambiguity, to his voice. Meanwhile, I was dimly aware of Gary arguing with Cilan over something, but the green-haired fellow seemed to be brushing him away which only fed Gary's irritation.

"You should be more encouraging…" his whisper came in and out of earshot, "…this…not a great time…obviously, he's missing a heart and right now half a brain…"

"He's fine," Cilan reassured, pretending as though he was interested in having any sort of discussion over the matter. However, I heard his voice grow lighter with curiosity when he said, "you know, that fellow looks somewhat familiar,"

I opened my eyes and looked up at the screen to which he pointed with a slender finger. My face paled.

" _And mythopoeic researcher, Calem Xavier, just announced the discovery of a ruined temple in the mountains past Nelgar, an ancient city found far from Couriway…"_ The anchor went on, but the man they showed on the screen, posing with a team of researchers in front of a dilapidated stone building without a roof, was the man I saw with Serena at the wedding. Her fiancé.

Gary followed my gaze as I went white and he growled, immediately looking for the remote to turn off the TV. Cursing under his breath, he raged at Cilan for pointing the man out, but Cilan lifted his hands in defense.

"I was actually talking about the professor _beside_ him," he bit his lip, actually looking a bit sorry, "I had no idea—,"

"You're impossible," Gary groused and continued turning the locker room inside out, "where do they keep the damn TV controls around here."

Just then, one of the battle coordinators came in to give me a five-minute warning. Gary pressed the guy for the remote, but he only shrugged before scrambling back out the door.

" _Professor Xavier is a recent graduate for Lumoise University, and founder of the mythopoeic society, a club dedicated to researching the stories behind mythical pokemon…"_

I listened, but rather numbly. I was more upset by how painfully my stomach twisted at seeing his face, remembering his hands on her waist, imagining his lips on hers. His breath on her skin. Why did my mind have to see what my eyes avoided? The mind is so much worse a foe to a broken heart compared to the surface of visible reality.

I took a deep, and long breath.

"Don't worry, Gary," I stood up and gave them both a shaky smile, "I—,"

" _Calem was previously connected to former Kalos-Queen, Serena Yvette. However, according to sources, the engagement was dissolved last week. Since then, he has…"_

I stopped. Frozen like a man caught in a blizzard.

The news went on, but didn't elaborate about the engagement. I sucked in a sharp breath, as if all the life I'd lost from seeing Calem's face, returned tenfold. I grabbed my blue jacket hanging from the racks near the door.

"Um, you have a battle in two minutes," Gary started, following my movements around the locker-room, "a championship battle. On TV. On a national network. Ash!"

I searched my pockets for my pokegear while Pikachu made his way on to my shoulders, somewhat bemused. "How fast can I get to Kalos?" I asked, more to myself. The question wasn't up for debate.

" _Kalos?_!" Gary sputtered, "Cilan!"

Gary looked at Cilan for help, but the ladder was smiling broadly. "I think he's made up his mind," he pointed to the door of which I was already half-way out.

I heard Gary groan as I took off down the halls of the stadium, Pikachu squealing in my ear. I didn't even notice I was being followed until making it out in to the large lobby, searching for the front where I could catch a cab.

"Take the regional plane," Gary yelled behind me as I began to outrun him, something I had never been able to do before, "Unova's close enough that they'll have planes leaving for Kalos every hour."

I looked over my shoulder to give him a grand smile, "Sorry, I have to go!"

"I know," he breathed and stopped, disappearing in to the wake of a crowd as I ran out the door and in to the freedom of sunlight.

 _xxxxx_

* * *

 _So, here we go. Next chapter we'll be done, but I also want to do a Q & A about the characters, their decisions, maybe even writing technique. I mostly will talk about the characters, and go in to more explanation as to how their decision making process works. I know that Serena's rejection here might cause some confusion, but honestly, I totally see why she does it. _

_However, i do want to point out the change in Ash. It's been fun watching him grow even in this story. From chapter one, where he stays there like a log, to now where he's literally not even thinking. We'll see how this develops I suppose._

 _Last thing, if you have any questions, review or PM me. I definitely would love to have a discussion if you all are willing or have anything you'd like to ask. In my opinion, it helps us all become better writers :)_


	8. Chapter 8

_Written while listening to Serial Doubter by Penny and Sparrow. I suppose it fit the mood._

 _Anyway, last chapter. It's been fun and we've all had our laughs and our cries. I'm pretty satisfied with the ending. There will be a Q &A to discuss it of course at the end. This chapter is all hope being satisfied. The closure to all the dramatics. I love it. Was giddy writing it. Now without further ado!_

* * *

 _ **The Girl in the Straw Hat**_

* * *

What if it was a rumor?

People on TV lied all the time.

I shook the thought out of my head while purchasing a ticket for the six o'clock flight to Kalos, avoiding every TV breaking with headlines about my forfeit. Small price to pay, in my opinion.

The lady at the counter handed me my boarding pass and sent me away with an apathetic irritation set across her face. If she was in the least bit curious about the impetuosity of my movements, she wasn't showing it. And I was too dumb with hope to care what she or anyone thought, really. Pikachu and I ran to catch the flight, scheduled to leave in twenty minutes.

She told me to hurry.

 _I can't have you come after me_

For a moment, I hesitated. The security guard calling me through the metal detector gave me an odd look as I stood looking dumbly across at him with one shoe in my hand. Pikachu snapped me out of my strange trance, jumping up to snatch the hat on my head, placing it on the conveyer belt. I followed his lead and threw down my shoes and my pokegear, along with whatever junk was in my pockets, in to a bin before passing the threshold. I recollected everything back in to my arms, and hurried to throw it back on. I only had about five minutes now to reach my gate before the doors closed.

Perhaps it was the sweetness of the exhilaration flowing through my blood as I flew down the halls, or maybe even the purity of the hope growing behind the smile moving slowly across my lips; a smile that should have belonged to a child's years ago, upon his first encounter with a treasure he'd only ever heard in stories. Regardless of the reason, upon each wall, my mind projected memories of her; ones of all kinds—good and bad.

I saw the day I first met her; within an emerald summer gilded by the gold sunlight. I saw her in the snow, her face in her hands frozen with tears. I saw her on a stage, glamoured by a million lights and colors, all dull compared to the auric streams in her hair, and the sapphiric jewels in her eyes.

I saw her throwing her head back to laugh as Clemont went up in fire. I saw her in my arms.

I saw her kiss a boy too dense to kiss her back; too scared to move a muscle as her lips, innocent and kind, brushed across his with the pure expectation of nothing in return. Just a kiss, boundless apart from age, more powerful than the years of denial shattered upon the precipice of its collision.

The boy was left raw by the virtue of those lips.

 _You don't mean it…I can't trust you…_

I hadn't understood. It occurred to me then, that my confession of love had only wounded Serena further, for she hadn't believed in its truth. I had been anything but consistent throughout the years, so her concern was valid. She believed my love was made of circumstance, not certainty. This and combined by her denial that it couldn't be real—for she often denied herself the benefit of the doubt—made it all the more necessary for me to come after her again, if not, one more time.

 _xxxxx_

I clenched my fists and pounded hard towards the gate, which was now in sight. Pikachu cheered me on as he scurried by my feet, mimicking the determination I held gritted between my teeth. It was an exhilarating moment to finally reach the door, and an equally devastating one to find them closed. I nearly crumpled to the ground from the stab of disappointment, swelling like a welt beneath my skin.

"B-but, I have a ticket!" I sputtered and held out the boarding pass, which flailed back and forth.

The man at the counter didn't even bother to look up. He was pale, with light hair, and looked about as bored as a rock. "That would have been useful ninety seconds ago," he muttered robotically and continued look down at a piece of paper, checking off forms and and signatures.

"Look," I slammed the ticket on to the counter, "I _see_ the plane. It hasn't left yet, and I'm not on it."

Now the man's cool stare passed over me as though I was everything he hated. At that moment, I probably was.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was blind," he spat sardonically, pointing to the bus taking the last passengers towards the plane—In my opinion, it was an easily walkable distance, and the staircase to the aircraft was still set—"that's the final bus, taking the final call. Full of people who weren't late."

"When's the next flight?"

"Tomorrow," the pale man answered, deriving too much pleasure from my misfortune, "at six in the morning."

"You're a—," I bit my tongue and pulled angrily away from the counter. I took my hat off and began running both hands through my hair while watching the last bus reached the small plane. The passengers moving up one by one.

Suddenly, I just decided to hell with it. Pikachu must have read my mind, because he smirked and jumped on to my shoulder. Without warning, I bolted through the automatic doors and out towards the plane; any shouts that followed me went disregarded as my legs exploded down the concrete plaza. A quarter of the way there, I began to lose speed and watched in horror as the staircase was moved away and the propellers began to move. I was out of time, again. Halfway there, the plane began to move away faster than I could run. Out of breath, panting, I came to a searing halt. The plane rolled away in to the pale horizon, disappearing with the last bit of light peaking through the clouds.

It began to rain.

I don't know why, but missing that plane killed me. Whether it was just the weight of my anxiety, or all of my regrets welded in to that moment, but I was so tired of missing planes. I felt as though this would be my life. Close, but not close enough. Quick, but still oh too slow. Serena might always just be as unattainable as ever.

Feeling the rain grow harder, I began to consider when to turn around and accept my fate.

With the heaviness that comes from bearing too much unmet expectation or hope, I watched my plane take off, unaware that another had pulled in until the staircase was being moved back in to place. I felt disoriented as a bus drove past me, the driver giving me an odd look since I obviously wasn't a worker or an aircraft director. It all felt surreal. And I was mildly shocked I hadn't been arrested yet. Somehow, I doubted that the pale man was apathetic enough to pass up a security call.

Still, I couldn't ignore the feeling pulsing within my bones. My breath was caught on the precipice of a moment that lacked finality, and felt stuck in the in-between of a denouement. Adrenaline still thundered furiously in my ears, though my mind tried to balm the worst of it with reality.

I tried focusing on the monotonous rhythm of the passengers now getting off of the plane. Their feet drumming the staircase, or so I imagined, as the rain was growing louder and I was too far away to hear the cadence of footsteps. They handed over their carry-on to the bus driver; he loaded the bus; they stepped inside. One by one.

Pikachu sniffed by my feet, waiting for my shock to subside.

The rain continued, evenly without variation; echoing the uniformity of the travelers and the planes. Time passed, but who knows how long I stood there. Though I might not have known it at the time, I was waiting for something to break. Something to disrupt the endless chase I kept after; to dismantle to waste of my efforts and break apart the repetitious cycle of disappointment and pain. Some sort of sign, visceral and clear, to show me a way out.

I didn't need it to be glorious, but in every way, it was.

 _xxxxx_

At first, I didn't let myself believe it was her. I thought perhaps the rain had become a screen, one on to which I was projecting the desire of my heart; a reverie reflected back to me like a mirror. Or perhaps the sun had moved out from behind the clouds, shining on my face with a delicate stream of gold, thin and crisp, the kind only found after a broken storm.

Looking again, the sun became her hair —bright as though it had been gilded by a dream and cut short as though she had just walked out of my memory.

I squinted in to the rain and stepped forward. My strides sounded thunderous to me in this daze. I would have thought I was crazy hadn't Pikachu given a surprised yelp, loud enough to draw the attention of the crew and the passengers and of the girl—in a soft pink dress, one I had seen before, tied at the top of its white collar by a royal blue ribbon—and the breath I lost over that ribbon returned as a wind now guiding the disbelief in my steps.

When she looked up, my daze reflected itself on to her face, which I could have sworn flickered on like a fire at the sight of me. Her stark stare, as blue as it had ever been, arrested themselves with the doubt that hypnotized her reactions in to slow and careful movements.

Serena came off the stairs, but did not move towards the bus. She moved towards me.

And now we were moving towards each other, the cleansing rain soaking us to our bone, and I loved it because I felt new. My disbelief was being washed away.

"Ash,"

The sound came from the certainty of her moving lips and they broke me. I respired—unshackled from my guarded stupor—inhaling the sharpened sight of her as though she were the breath I had forgotten to take.

When she stopped, I stopped. We stood apart by only a few, studying the outlines of each others faces against the grey matte light, quickly fading as the sun behind the storm moved on to its setting.

"You're here," Serena blinked, her expression still stunned in to an ivory mask of white, "I—I mean, of course you're here—but you shouldn't be _here_. You be should be…"

She trailed off, now blushing after her words. I kept thinking about how soft and delicate her voice sounded above the rain, too much so to actually comprehend what she was saying. Part of me was still deciding whether or not she was real. Even the storm couldn't mute the brightness of her.

"Serena, I—," I didn't even realize I was speaking; my lips didn't feel quite right, and my thoughts moved around my head like tar, entangling any graceful or coherent sentence I could muster. It took incredible effort to speak. "I missed my plane."

Serena stared at me for a moment, then in a wave of comprehension glanced over her shoulder and back at the plane; then she looked back at me. Her mouth began to move up and down wordlessly, as though she were also at a loss for words.

"You missed…," Serena inhaled, sharply, "You missed you battle—you missed the championship! Ash!"

"No, Serena," I shook my head and gave her the slightest hint of a smile; an incredible lightness forming within the hollow of my stomach, "I missed my plane. To Kalos."

She stared at me for a long time before her mouth, beneath a whisper, lipped the word, _Kalos_.

"But you're _here_ ," I muttered as it occurred to me that she knew about my battle. That she knew I would be in Unova. I gave a short breath of disbelief.

"I told you not to come after me," she was saying, a smile—the most beautiful thing I had seen in five years—bloomed across her lips.

I met her with an incredible grin, one so wide it hurt the muscles in my cheeks. "I've always been a little dense,"

Without another word, she ran to me.

I don't know how our lips met. It must have happened the moment she leapt in to my arms, the moment I caught her in an embrace that was built for the frame of her body. She must have dipped her head towards my mouth, stealing that kiss along with every last bit of my spirit, which had been kindred with hers since the very beginning. In the rain, she still felt the same—the impression of her lips had been built in to mine upon the moment they first breathed in to me.

And I kissed her back. I didn't want to just kiss her lips, but her soul too. I wanted to drown in it—to drown in her. I wanted to kiss her with that infinite freedom that comes from being unchained by time, with all the slowness of a man returning home. I wanted to kiss her until she knew she was the bright thing I'd ever seen, the brightest thing I'd ever held; until she knew I would sell the last of my breath for a taste of her heart. I wanted to kiss her until she knew I was hers.

And I did.

* * *

 _x_

 _x_

 _x_

 _Alright, ladies and gents. Thank you to all of you who reviewed or followed or favorited this story. The support is always encouraging and appreciated. Never be shy to PM me or follow me if you'd like to keep up with my writing. I will now refocus my attention on The Pursuit, which is another one of my stories coming to a close. Afterwards I will be starting a sort of epic, featuring many characters from the Pokemon world, but placing them in a more fantasy-like setting. The main pairing will be Ash and Serena, of course, but the story will expand to many other plots and sub-plots entwining the two together._

 _Alright, for the Q &A. _

**Q: So, the ending...We have Ash chasing after Serena, only to find that she chased after him. Why now? Why didn't she just fall in to Ash's arms after he first confessed to her at the wedding?**

 _ **A:**_ Well, the plot just isn't as complicated as one might think. And perhaps, many of you already know the answer. It's simple: when Ash confessed at the wedding, _Serena just_ _didn't believe him_. She ever replied to his confession, saying, "You don't mean it" and "I don't trust you." Why didn't she believe him? Well Ash never had a track record for being constant. In many ways, she figured Ash was just reacting after seeing her with Calem; that he only wanted her now that she was with someone else.

 **Q: What changed her mind then?**

 _ **A:**_ Honestly, it has to do with Ash's confession, but not the confession itself. After Ash apologizes, we hear Serena telling him to stop before she begins falling apart, saying that now she can't hate him. In chapter 4, after Ash tries to blame her for changing him, we catch a glimpse of Ash's worst self, and the only way Serena believed she could move on is by holding on to that memory. She used it to force herself 'out of love' in a way, which worked until she and Ash had that scene at that wedding, in the garden. After seeing that Ash had changed back to his old self in many ways, she basically fell in love with him all over again. Cautiously, of course. However, because she fell back in love—or rather realized that she was still _in_ love—with Ash, she obviously didn't feel right about marrying Calem anymore. It wouldn't be fair to him. That's why she broke off the engagement and decided to find Ash herself. She also went under her own transformation to get to this point.

 **Q: What kind of transformation? Was Serena changed by the way Ash reacted to her first kiss?**

 _ **A:**_ Of course. We see her distant and closed off for most of the story. At Snowpoint, at the wedding, etc. Even with Calem she was more subdued and realistic, almost dull. It was like she knew that she could be happy with Calem, despite the fact that a huge part of her still resided with Ash even though she denied this fact to herself. Here's a quick thing to note: Beginning of the story, Serena makes the first move by kissing Ash-he rejects it, she becomes insecure and withdrawn girl again. Middle of the story, Ash blames Serena, she is shocked and her insecurity deepens (with good reason) so runs off, but still with a slight hope that Ash might chase after her and take everything back-he doesn't, and she becomes even _more_ withdrawn. Finally, Ash apologizes and though Serena doesn't believe him at first, when the apology is followed by a confession of love-despite everything Serena does get some confidence back after realizing that she still loves Ash. She wakes up to find herself with a man with whom she is not herself. All this leads to Serena's own retransformation, back in to a confident woman chasing after the man she loves in order to get answers—even if it meant another rejection— which echoes, in some ways, the very beginning of the story when she kissed Ash. However, I think at the ending here, she was more expecting to get closure than a happy ending. Sort of how Ash did in chapter 7 on the balcony of his hotel; where he resolved to love Serena even if he couldn't be with her. I think Serena resolved the same thing in her own way.

 **Q: Why did the reconciliation seem so...easy?**

 _ **A:**_ Well, I think it sort of just fell in to place. Again, Serena was on a quest to find Ash (and I think her first intention was to give him a piece of her mind for putting her through hell) but as soon as she found him, standing there like a fool after missing his plane to Kalos, realizing that he was going to come after her, Ash had basically proved the validity of his love right there. Haha, it's great! Despite that he was a mess and just totally winging it, Ash ended up proving his love for her just by _trying_ , which is so typical of Ash and what Serena wanted all along.

 **Q: Okay, so going back to the wedding, if Ash knew he felt how he did about Serena, why didn't he go after her sooner? Why did he do it at the wedding?**

 ** _A:_ ** Ahhh, a number of reasons. 1.) In chapter 5, after realizing that _she_ didn't change him, but that the kiss just sort of made him aware of his own inner demons, Ash grew ashamed. Ashamed of the way he'd changed, ashamed of the way he'd treated her, etc. And so, in many ways Ash felt as though he needed to prove himself, and change back to whom he was, before he could face Serena again and apologize. The hint for this is in chapter 7, when Ash says, "I wasn't ready to be forgiven, but I am now." What he meant was that, he felt as though he didn't deserve forgiveness until he became a better person. This mentality came back to bite him in the butt, since he probably would've gone on for years (if not, forever) earning achievements and tangible affirmation before feeling worthy of Serena's forgiveness. He didn't realize that her love wasn't something to be earned, but something to be met. And that she gave it to him unconditionally. A mistake so many of us make. 2.) Ash didn't snap out of this 'I must earn forgiveness' mentality until he learned about Serena's engagement. That is the moment where Ash felt the acute sting of TIME, which was quite a theme in our story wasn't it? In all of his efforts to become a better man, he lost track of time. 3.) Now that she was engaged, Ash didn't know what to do. Should he go to her still? Was that appropriate? Did it even matter now? He was sort of in a frozen state of shock. But he ends up going to the wedding, knowing that he would see Serena there, but even then he had no idea what was going to happen or what he would say. It wasn't until Clemont talked to him, that Ash made it a point to at least apologize to her, which was good and appropriate to do. However, that apology then turned in to a confession of love upon Serena's reaction. And that confession was actually done a little selfishly for his own sake, for his own closure—not Serena's. He didn't even consider what his confession of love would do to Serena. He wasn't really thinking through his desperation. I think he realized that, though, after resolving not to kiss her. Either way, Ash's motives for love didn't align until that night on the balcony—where in my opinion, he learned the true meaning of unconditional love; to love someone without the expectation of love in return. There, he truly began to love Serena, the way she always loved him. This love also explains why it was so easy for Ash to abandon his championship and run after Serena upon learning about her break-up.

 **Q: So, switching more to writings style; you use a lot of romantic language. Who are your influences?**

 _ **A:**_ To list a few: Robert Frost, Butler Yeats, Wordsworth, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, George McArthur (READ HIS FAIRYTALES), Keats, and of course: Shakespeare. There is no one who handled the beauty of a word as delicately as Shakespeare. I prefer more romantic language, simply because I find it more beautiful than realism or modernism. I believe it's making a come back with books like _All the Light We Cannot See_ and _The Nightingale_. However, romantic poets, such as the ones I listed, heavily influence me as well.

 **Q: Shifting gears again, what drew you to Amourshipping?**

 _ **A:**_ In all honesty, it had to be Serena. She's just so classy, and incredibly warm as a character. Also, compared to the other companions they've introduced on the show, she by far has the most character development which in turn makes her a fascination and fun character to write about. I also like the idea of her bringing out complexities in Ash. On top of this, their chemistry is phenomenal.

 **Q: Did you ever think about writing the story in Serena's Point of View?**

 _ **A:**_ Absolutely. I think about writing her version of this story often. In fact, the story you have now was originally supposed to be in 3rd person, sort of going back and forth. However, when I sat down to write, Ash's voice just started coming out of me. And usually I dislike 1st person stories very much...but I couldn't stop the voice from being what it was. When a story naturally has a certain tone and voice, it's wrong to force it in to something else. This was Ash's story in many ways, and he needed to tell it.

 **Q: Any words of advice to the writing community?**

 _ **A:**_ The best thing I've learned, after reading so much and taking some creative writing classes, is that the story must be _character-driven_ if it is to be any good at all. Plot doesn't always make an interesting story, as no plot is original nowadays. Everything is a remix of something else. It is the _characters_ that make a story refreshing and original. I only implement plot to guide the characters when needed. Ash's decisions and Serena's decisions are what made the story interesting, not the curveballs I threw at them, or some random predicament I implemented. Ash rejects Serena, goes in to a state of self-reflection; sees Serena again, blames her and grows ashamed; Serena decides to get married, Ash hears about it, snaps back in to reality; Ash sees Serena again, apologizes, confesses love, is seemingly rejected, learns from it; Serena decides not to get married, Ash hears about it, and after all the growth his decisions have developed, he goes after her. This structure was bound to happen in whatever scenario I put them in, more or less. I could have made the wedding a tournament, wouldn't have matter. I just needed to place them together, and from there it's up to the decisions of the character's, which obviously must be _in_ character. _Character-driven_ stories. Characters are what matter.


	9. Christmas Special

**Christmas Special**

 _Hello there! Sorry I feel like I've been neglecting you all in the midst of the end-of-the-year madness! So, to make up for it, I thought I'd write a little Christmas gift in order to hold you over until next year when I can find the time to update more frequently again. Just want to say thank you to all of you who support and encourage not only me, but this community! It's a great crowd we got going on here and I can't wait to see what next year has in store. **Merry Christmas** fellow amourshippers! And to all a Happy New Year! I will see you again soon :)_

* * *

December 24th, Ash found himself wandering around Lumiose at a complete and total loss.

In his hands he held nothing. No box. No paper wrappings. Not even a ribbon. He looked down at his empty fingers and clenched them in to fists at the same time throwing his head back with a dramatic sigh.

"You mean, you still don't have… _anything?_ " Clemont asked, striding beside his dark haired friend with his hands casually tucked in to the pockets of his coat. He cocked his head to the side, the bright cold son reflecting briefly off his glasses before revealing his icy gaze. "She's going to be upset…" the blonde grimaced, and not from the sharp window harrowing through the snow-pillowed city.

Ash shot Clemont with a stiff glare. "You don't think I know that?" he growled and muttered something under his breath. His fingers now ran themselves through his thick black locks, startled to find them slick with snow. Ash stopped and took a moment to vent his frustrations by scratching his head wildly to get rid of the ice. "And, to be clear, I _do_ have something," Ash bit his lip, "I just wanted it to be a surprise...that is, if I could pull it off. But no one seems to be able to help!"

Clemont, who had walked on a few paces ahead, now stopped to turn around, "Well, maybe I might be able to help," he shrugged passively as he was by now used to Ash's dramatics, "that is, if I knew what you were looking for."

Ash considered, looking out in to the busy street gradually filling with the noontime crowd. All of the shops had opened early, their doors flashing signs and lights hopping to attract eager or desperate customers clutching for last minute gifts. Some vendors even braved the cold by setting up carts and kiosks on the roads, hollering out offers and holiday prices some people couldn't refuse. Kids roamed freely, gathering around stalls or performers modeling the latest toy, and somewhere, all the time, people were laughing.

For the first time, Ash felt free to notice the beauty of the snow crested buildings and trees, and the glimmer of the reds and golds ribboned upon every street lamp and sign. And it was all because of _her_. All because she loved him. The sudden delight of realizing that for once, Ash would be spending Christmas loving her. This was enough to calm him down and draw a brilliant grin upon his face.

"Okay," Ash scratched his nose, his smile growing almost sheepish, "you have to swear on your life, that you will not tell anyone. I mean it,"

Clemont reframed from rolling his eyes. "Sure,"

"No," Ash's face grew dark, "no—not 'sure'—you have to promise."

The blonde young man proceeded to look around as though he should be worried. After figuring that there would be enough witnesses should he be murdered, Clemont gave Ash a short nod, "I promise."

Upon hearing him agree, Ash moved swiftly over to his friend and grabbed him by the arm with a determined grip. He smirked as Clemont's eyes filled with a slight fear at being dragged towards one of the yellow brick buildings lining the street. Using the wall as a cover, Ash began looking around to make sure no one was looking before digging for something in his pocket.

"Please try and look more suspicious," Clemont muttered, half-expecting a security guard to come over and interrogate them for drugs, "no, really. I think you'd give Team Flare a run for their money."

"Will you just—Aha!" Ash's eyes shook with a glimmering excitement. He drew out a dragon scale, as blue as a winter sky, as large as his hand. As he moved it in the sun, the scale glistened and pixelated from one shade of blue to another. Ash looked at Clemont, whose eyes were fixed on the fascinating object. "I found it on the beach. In Vermillion,"

"Um," Clemont cupped his hands in a non-verbal plea to hold it. Ash hesitantly dropped it in to his fingers. The gym leader smiled at the heavy sensation, cool and smooth against his touch. "I mean, it's a rare find and all," Clemont began, still rotating the scale in his hands, riveted, "but what's Serena going to do with it?"

Ash snatched the thing back up and stuck it in to his jacket pocket. "If I was going to just give her the scale, I wouldn't be running around stores acting like I'm crazy," he snapped, "obviously."

Clemont lifted both hands up in his defense. "Alright, sorry," he muttered, but a small smile was evident on his lips, "it's just, Serena likes fashion, not geological anomalies."

"Okay, first of all, it's a _dragon_ scale, not a rock," Ash shook his head, clearly irritated, "and second; my plan is to actually use the scale for…something else."

At this, the blonde pursed his lips. "Yea, I'm going to need you to be more specific."

Ash shifted uneasily. Much to Clemont's surprise, a slight flush appeared on the trainer's cheeks.

"I've been looking for a jewel-cutter," Ash explained, so quickly Clemont hardly understood what he'd said, "or a stone-worker or someone who can help me cut this thing."

Clemont offered a sideways glance before drifting off in to thought. It took him a moment or two before he realized what Ash was considering. His blue eyes went wide. "Are you—" the gym leader paused to contain the broad smiling pushing across his lips, "I'm sorry, I mean…are you looking to turn that thing in to a ring?"

Ash suppressed returning Clemont's excitement. Looking down at the snow, he reached in to his other pocket and pulled out small black box. He flipped it open and pulled out an empty white gold band—polished and forged with delicacy.

"I see…" Clemont continued to act nonchalant, but a few seconds passed, Ash still holding the ring up to the gym leader, and people were beginning to look. Clemont sucked in a cold, horrified breath and waved his arms to negate the implied gesture, "okay, put it away! you're proposing, got it, but don't not to me!"

Ash snorted with laughter and placed the ring back in the box, and the box back in to his pocket. "So you think you can help?" he ran a hand through his dark hair, "Help me find someone to cut this, I mean."

"Hm," Clemont put a finger up to his chin, contemplating. "Nope," he said after a moment, dashing Ash's hopes and dreams with the word, "you don't _cut_ dragon scales, Ash. That thing is harder than steel. Why don't you just get Serena a normal ring, like a normal person?"

"Are you kidding me?" Ash groaned, "You make me tell you and then you admit to being useless?"

"Look, I said I _might_ be able to help," Clemont said merrily, somewhat amused by the thought of Ash proposing. He began to turn and continued walking down the street when Ash stopped him.

"No, no, no, no, no," he repeated, stepping in front of the blonde, "you are going to refer me to someone—anyone to get me one step closer to finding a way to make the perfect ring, okay?"

"Anyone?"

"Anyone," Ash affirmed with a nod.

Clemont paused to think. Within a few seconds, a sunny grin appeared. "I think I can do that."

 _xxxxx_

"You told Bonnie?!" Ash was about as dumbstruck as a robbed nobleman, his mouth moved up and down in shock, "Bonnie?!"

"I'm going to pretend that I'm not offended," Bonnie flipped her curly blonde bob and titled her nose upward. She had come to meet them at a nearby café for lunch after receiving an urgent phone call from Clemont, who could do nothing but merrily share the news. Ash was still stunned with an unreasonable amount of anxiety as they took their seats and ordered; so much so Bonnie had to shoo the waiter away for a moment in order to fully address the situation. "Ash Ketchum, don't gape you mouth at _me_ ," the petite young woman brought the glass of cold water to her lips before continuing, "as Serena's best friend, I should have the right to know that you're _proposing_. The man always needs help getting the job done, and what do you think the FMOH is for?"

Ash leaned over to Clemont, slipping a low whisper beneath his breath, "FMOH?"

"Future Maid of Honor," the gym leader answered without missing a beat.

Bonnie continued. "You should know better, Ash. But I can't completely hold it against you because your so dense," she practically growled the last word, causing both young men to flinch.

Just then, the waiter came back. Bonnie ordered for all of them before the others had a chance to think. Once the waiter collected the menus and left, Clemont complained.

"We don't have time for moaning," Bonnie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, "we have about seven hours to get a ring in Ash's hands before Serena gets suspicious. She was also complaining about how weird he's been acting, which now, makes a bit more sense."

"I wasn't acting weird," Ash protested, "I was just…I'm a bad liar is all. If she asks to many questions, I won't be able to keep my mouth shut. I can't hide anything from her." This statement was more true than he knew.

"Which is why you need me to cover your ass," Bonnie shook her head as though these were basic and fundamental steps to planning a proposal, "whatever. It doesn't matter now. I'll handle it. So what kind of ring are we talking here?"

"Well," Ash cocked his head while pulling the dragon scale out of his pocket, "I want a piece of this cut in to some gem shape, I guess."

Bonnie's eyes went wide—the natural reaction predisposed to be given by the beholder of the shimmering object. "Damn, you don't make this easy," she muttered, but didn't discourage him as Clemont had, which surprised Ash to some degree. "It matches her eyes…"

"Exactly," Ash beamed, and put away the scale again, "and…well, there's a story behind it but I won't go in to it. I just need to get the thing cut and placed on the band I have."

"What kind of band?" Bonnie interrogated.

"What do you mean?"

"Silver, gold, copper, diamond—come on, Ash, please tell me you at least _thought_ about it and didn't just—" she spread her hands apart and let them fall irritably on the table, "—pick something that looked pretty."

Immediately, Ash took out the box and placed it in front of Bonnie.

She snatched it up in her small pale hands and opened it. After assessing the band for a moment or two, she nodded. "White gold," she sighed, obviously relieved, "good job,"

Ash let his shoulders relax. He didn't see how this situation could get any more stressful.

"So what kind of cut are we talking?"

"Arceus," Clemont muttered and allowed his face to fall upon his fingers.

Bonnie turned to her brother and slapped him on the back of the head. "You should all be praising the name of all that is legendary that I learned about this in the knick of time," Bonnie turned back to Ash, "so what kind of cut were you thinking?"

"Um," Ash swallowed, "there are different kinds…?"

Bonnie stiffened, but reframed from exploding seeing as the waiter arrived with their food. She gave him a cordial smile and again hurried him away before allowing her bright blue stare back to the subject of her interrogation.

"Okay then," Bonnie pulled off the napkin wrapped around her knife and fork and began digging in to her rawst berry salad with a violent hurry, "don't ask for a cushion. Serena's fingers are small and delicate and a cushion will just look big and awkward on her. heart is okay, but again if you decide on that one don't get it too big. _My_ personal opinion is the princess cut. It's a classy style for a classy girl. But then again, this is _your_ choice. We'll have to run by a jeweler so that you can at least know what they look like."

Ash nodded eagerly. Though still somewhat disappointed it wouldn't be a grand surprise, he was suddenly more than grateful that Bonnie had come in to the picture. He turned to Clemont and lipped an appreciation while the young woman continued to devour her food.

Clemont shrugged.

 _xxxxx_

As soon as lunch had finished, the bill paid, Bonnie marched the naïve young men over to a nearby jewelry store, which was packed with all sorts of women and couples fawning over the glittering cases. Ash had never seen such enamor. He struggled navigating through the crowd while following Bonnie, and had an even harder time getting anywhere near the displays.

Clemont had decided to wait outside. His excuse: "That mob is wild."

Ash grunted as he pushed his way through the final thin wall of bodies, reaching Bonnie who had already began pointing out different styles of gem cuts. She explained each of them, with more detail than Ash had the capacity to hold, and then called over one of the clerks running briskly about the shop. In the end, a tall older gentleman tended to them with a tired but kind smile. He offered to take out anything from the case if they'd like.

"Actually," Bonnie began, standing on her tiptoes to lean over the glass, "we need to know if you could refer us to a gem cutter, or a masonry…"

The man's thick eyebrows raised ever so slightly with surprise, calling forth the wrinkles upon his forehead. "Perhaps. I could look at our list of suppliers," he said. "May I ask what type of gem you need cut today?"

Bonnie bit her lip. She motioned for Ash to show the man the scale and then watched the clerk's reaction as it was pulled out.

The older man allowed a soundless gasp and immediately began shaking his head. "I don't think that's possible, ma'am. I'm sorry, but—,"

"Look," Bonnie cut in, however her sweet voice made it almost sound polite, "I'm not asking if _you_ can do it. I'm asking if you know some who can, or if you know someone who might know someone who can."

The clerk's mouth twisted in to a slight frown, but he nodded. "Very well," he tapped the glass with a knuckle, "wait here just a moment."

 _xxxxx_

Once, long before Ash had known anything about love, before he had broken his own heart with fear; before she had first kissed him—there was a time when boyish naivety was enough to validate Ash's swellings of inexplicable desire with innocence. He would come across these from time to time during his travels—this longing to anchor on to something permanent—but the sentiment never lasted too long in the face of adventure and challenge.

However, when Serena came in to the picture, something somewhere in Ash had shifted. It was as though a tectonic of the earth had fitted in to another, after being parted by an ocean for hundreds of years. There was a click.

Ash was too young to recognize it by name at the time, but he knew well enough how to feel. And the feeling happened on a bright afternoon in the spring, when the winds in southern Kalos were relentless and crisp, blowing away the new growing warmth of a long absent sun. Serena had been cooking a pot of vegetable soup, standing over it while methodically stirring the food with a wooden spoon. Her tongue slightly caught outside by the corner of her red mouth in an unconscious habit.

Ash had smiled, staring and getting lost in the way she put so much work in to making the food. It had always been her way to do everything she did with a hundred and ten percent, even if it had to do with simmering vegetables. He had been so lost in the thoughtless gazing that the paper plates, which he had been instructed to set on the table, blew right out of his hand at the force of a large southbound gust. He had yelped and bounded after them, Clemont and Bonnie laughing.

Serena had tried to help, but she tripped upon a sudden decline as they had begun following the plates down a hill. Ash had tried to catch her, but rather the two fell together and rolled upon the grass until the ground leveled again. The experience was short and painless, but when Ash opened his eyes he found himself underneath a horrified Serena. She was mouthing wordlessly as a furious blush consumed her face and her neck.

Ash had stayed there, dazed. Not by the fall. Rather by the way her eyes changed from different shades of blue as a cloud passed over the sun and off it again. Those eyes. Diamonded ice one minute, a dark sky at twilight the next. He knew those eyes could by the heavens themselves if eyes could be such things. Her bright stare could be a home. A starry, permanent home with an anchor and port, and Ash had smiled at the thought of finding himself there.

And without even knowing, Ash had given another piece of his heart to her that day. The day he found his soul a home.

 _xxxxx_

At dusk, Ash's hope was beginning to fade. They had jumped from reference after reference, following a list of the cities many jewelers, and no one knew how to cut the scale. Some had even tried, taking them back in to their workshop, allowing for the three to watch as the jewel worker tried in vain to make a dent on the thing. By the fourteenth recommendation, even Bonnie was beginning to lose her optimistic determination. Clemont had given up a long time ago.

The shops were beginning to close. Ash felt a familiar despair well up in his stomach. He hadn't even thought of a backup plan.

After trying to persuade Ash to just get a regular ring, Bonnie offered to make something up to cover him, but Ash waved away her proposal. Though she was persistent (as usual). He said he'd think of something, and let them go for the evening seeing as they had promised to go to dinner with their father. He assured them that he and Serena would both be at the party tomorrow and then wandered somewhere in the opposite direction.

Not wanting to go back home right away, Ash detoured through one of the small alleys, surprised to find a few shops tucked away off the main road, some still open. Cutting through a more narrow passage, Ash halted at a sign hanging low next to an open door. The wood was old and splintered while the hinges were near broken with rust, creaking loudly with the evening wing. Fading against the rotten timber, was the black painted word _Tinker_.

Ash squinted up at the sharp wind and mouthed the word silently, finding the sensation strange upon his lips. He stayed there, staring at the sign for a few minutes, before eventually deciding to go in. He figured he might as well try and find something else while the store was still open.

Walking in, Ash was met by a soft wave of gentle heat pouring off of an old radiator near the door. He shivered as the snow melted instantly off his clothes and his hair. The shop itself was a mess of knick knacks and trinkets crammed across old wooden shelves. Books were stacked high in random unorganized piles on the floor, some piles reaching over Ash's head close to the ceiling. He moved around carefully, trying to avoid knocking anything over.

"Hello?" he looked around for someone—anyone—but the shop seemed empty. The only movement came from the candles flickering on a glass counter, the wax dripping practically down the last bit of wick. Ash moved closer towards the glass case to see if a cashier would appear.

Nothing.

After a few moments of standing there confused, Ash decided to just leave.

He was halfway towards the door when a small old man with a wizard beard and a bent back jumped out from behind one of the many stacks of books. It would be inaccurate to suggest Ash didn't scream.

"Can I help you?" ask the stranger, his dull blue eyes made large by the spectacles he wore.

Ash took a moment to regain his composure, breathing hard to catch up with the sudden loss of air. He ran a quick hand through his hair. "I don't think so actually," he muttered, his eyes glazing over the store's mess, "I was just looking,"

"Well, you're not looking hard enough," the old man observed with a grin. He hobbled past Ash, behind his glass counter where he had a stack of books to stand on and make himself look taller. He waved the young man over with a frail and freckled hand. "You know, long ago people would come in to my shop looking for something and find it," he said, pushing up his spectacles farther on to the bridge of his nose with a gummy grin, "that's what the town tinker was for, after all."

Ash nodded, his mind clearly preoccupied. Despite himself, he walked over to the counter and took out the dragon scale, placing it on the glass. He watched the tinker regard it neutrally before taking out a cylinder magnifying glass, clipping it on to his spectacles, to observe the thing more closely in his hands.

"This is a good scale," the tinker murmured, combing his long grey beard with bony fingers, "the coloration is vibrant without worn; a true abstract of blue. Its real because—," the old man tapped the scale with a small pick he suddenly pulled out behind the counter, "when you tap it, the sound is like a diamond echoing through thousands of faucets of cave-like space. That and along with the color…it's a rare find."

The young man looked at the tinker surprised. "I need to get it cut…," before the old man could respond, Ash hastily took out the box and the band of white gold, placing it on the counter for the tinker to see. "And I want a piece put on to the ring," Ash said, the last of his hope riding through this breath, "do you know anyone…? Anyone than can help me?"

The tinker regarded Ash with those large, magnified eyes and blinked. "What's the ring for?"

"A girl," Ash offered a small shy smile, "my girl."

"Who is she?" the old man asked, moving in to a dark back room hidden behind a large open scroll back from the counter. He disappeared for a moment in to the darkness, but came back in to view after flicking on a lamp. Half of his wrinkled face was shadowed as he rummaged through all sorts of things near the wall cut off from Ash's sight.

"Who is she?" the young man repeated, confused by the question.

The tinker grunted, pulling at a heavy box buried beneath various items on a shelf. "What is she like, I mean. Who is she to you? Why give her the scale when you could give her any other gem? Why the scale, why her?"

"She's…" Ash stopped. His first reaction was to be aggravated at this tinker for asking such a personal question. However, as Ash jogged back through all the memories he had of Serena. Of Serena and him. His lips couldn't help but curve in to a broad grin, and his eyes lit up with a determination evoked by the challenge of describing such the girl that made his blood beat with a pulse.

Ash pointed to the blue scale, now shining within the tinker's hands. "I found that on a beach, two years after she kissed me. She kissed me and it changed my life because all I could think about were her lips, and why I didn't have the courage to chase her down and kiss her myself—the way I wanted to. I didn't write. I didn't call. But I found this scale and next thing you know I'm being handed a ticket to come here, to Kalos, where she was. And all I could think about, was that kiss."

He smiled, and gave a small shrug. He looked embarrassed, but only because of how much she meant to him. It's embarrassing to confess that your heart is no longer your own. That your veins run with the blood of another person. Sometimes, it can be humiliating. But more than sometimes, its all sorts of beautiful.

"More than three years later, I'm waking up in her eyes, which—I'm not lying—reflect every shade of blue that's on the scale in your hands, sir—in fact, I'm convinced her eyes are even bluer. But that scale was the closest thing I came to finding a piece of her, back when I wasn't brave enough to kiss her. Back when I couldn't say 'I love you,'" Ash paused, shaking at the truth of his words, "now that I'm brave enough, I want to give that piece back to her. And tell her I'll love her forever…if you know what I mean…"

By this point the old man had regarded Ash with a mild degree of incredulity and moved over to the front door, which he opened. From a wooden beam above the shop, he broke off an icicle as long as his arm and wrapped it in a thin cloth which he had brought over from the counter. Hobbling back in to the shop and towards the back closet again, the old man took out a green glass bottle half full of a dark liquid. Ash watched as he unwrapped the icicle, pouring a small bit of the dark substance across the ice.

"It's an alchemic bonding. I can't have the ice melt on me while trying to cut your scale," the old man gave Ash a wry smile.

"Y-You mean," Ash sucked in a disbelieving breath, "but—uh, I'm—I mean how?"

The tinker pointed to his skull and laughed once. "I'm a tinker. I collect things and knowledge. We are a dying breed, but some people still manage to get lucky and find us. Now, I'm going go cut this in the back. You can wait here, or leave and come back," the old man shrugged, "it'll take me a couple hours."

"Using _ice_?" Ash narrowed his eyes, feeling naturally suspicious, "you're not conning me are you? Because if you are, I swear—,"

"Boy, I'm not a thief," the tinker's sharp and shard tone silence Ash, "ice is the only think that will cut a dragon scale. The chemicals in the keratin react violently to the cold—and the thin enamel layer is dissolved. Once that is softened, it's then makes it possible to manipulate with a normal hammer and chisel, since it won't be able to grow back."

Ash listened, fascinated. "And that's why ice is super effective on dragon," he muttered, a small smirk at his lips.

The tinker grinned broadly. "Now, would you like to come back, or?"

"Actually," Ash followed the old man in to the back, "I'd like to watch, if that's okay?"

The tinker nodded, still smiling. "Take a seat, boy. And watch how it's done."

 _xxxxx_

It was near midnight when Ash found his way back to the apartment—a yellow-brick building near the old part of town. It wasn't lavish or extravagant in anyway, but the historic shudders and fading paint lent the whole edifice a romantic character. Before entering through the front, Ash looked up and saw that the lights were still on beyond the window of their apartment at the very top on the third floor. He smiled, digging for his keys before running inside. He climbed the stairs, taking three at a time, and fumbled while opening the lock. He swung the door open and was met by the waning warmth of the fireplace, the embers dying upon the hearth. The wood black and grey with ash.

His eyes traveled over towards the couch facing the remnants of flame.

Serena lay fast asleep, Pikachu curled up on her stomach. Her gold hair spilled over the cushions, a small hand near her red lips which were parted ever so slightly by the intervallic intakes of her breath. Her ivory face was painted by the dim firelight, adding hues of orange and reds on to the smooth canvass of her skin.

Ash had to catch his breath, closing the door with the barest hint of touch. He tiptoed down the hall, hanging his jacket on a stand and catching a glimpse of the adjacent dining room, which had been set with a lavish dinner. Ash deflated slightly. She had made a roast, with potatoes, salad, dessert. The whole thing was even decorated with candles and holly. He glanced at his pokegear and saw seven missed calls. All from her.

He cursed.

Moving back in to the living room, Ash knelt down towards where she slept. He felt so bad he had to wake her, and he prodded her out of her dreams with gentle kiss.

She stirred.

Pikachu jumped and squealed seeing Ash, jumping on to his shoulder and then scurrying in to the kitchen. This further shook Serena out of sleep.

Her eyes opened. And in the warm light looked like glassy pools of water within a spring. She saw Ash and allowed a relieved sigh to break across her lips. She placed a sleepy hand on his cheek, bring him towards her again.

"I fell asleep," she murmured, still dazed. She closed her eyes again and frowned, remembering. "I made a dinner. You didn't come."

Ash kissed her again, and then a third time. "I know, I'm sorry. I had no idea—I didn't see your calls, I was—I—,"

"Shh," Serena placed a weak finger to his lips and offered a gentle smile. She shifted on the couch in to a sitting position, rubbing the lingering haze from her eyes. "I should know better than to plan surprises with you," she gave him an ironic smirk, "you're unpredictable."

Ash smiled, his fingers caressing the skin blow her ear with a timidity stemmed by his ever-present doubt. More than often, he couldn't believe she was real. That she was with _him_. These thoughts made him hungry to taste her again. To taste her in to his senses—in to his reality. He brought her lips towards him, and this time with more fervor, consumed them. He pushed her back on to the couch, climbing on top.

Serena groaned with exhaustion, but failed to suppress a beautiful giggle, which Ash loved and wanted to hear again.

"Ash, it's late," she sighed in to his neck as he brought his lips down her jaw, across her ear, in to her hair.

"It's Christmas," Ash breathed, now moving down to her collar bone with a wicked grin, "and I have a present for you…multiple, actually."

"Hmmm," Serena dissolved in to a long exhalation, "I might have gotten you the same thing."

Ash looked up and saw her own mischievous smile moving its way across her cheeks. He shook his head, planted one last kiss upon her lips, and climbed off. Serena frowned at the sudden changed. But this was quickly followed by a sharp gasp.

She shot up, swinging her legs off the cushions. A shaking hand found its way to her mouth, hinged open, and her eyes were already melting in to rivers as Ash fell on to one knee before her. In his hand, a ring as blue and pure as the frost.

"I have a question that might make up for my absence at dinner," he grinned, taking her right hand, finding the finger to place beside the white band.

Serena could feel him shaking.

"Serena," he bit his lip and continued, "I can't go on another minute without being married to you. I have a lot of time to make up for, but I want us to make it up together—I don't think…I know I won't find another star to lead me home when I'm lost. I want you to be home for me. And I want to be home to you too, if you'll let me. Will you?"

"Ash Ketchum," Serena gasped, her face angry and alarmed and elated with the purest joy all at once. She gripped the collar of his shirt and crashed his lips in to hers, whispering yes over and over and over again.

She whispered it in between the kisses, in between the laughter; over and over while they made love, and from there on, ever after.

* * *

 _I couldn't resist the rhyme ;) Merry Christmas_


End file.
